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THE EPOCHS OF PHILOSOPHY 

Edited by John Grier Hibben, Princeton University 

The aim of the series on The Epochs of Philosophy is to 
present the significant features of philosophical thought in the 
chief periods of its development. There is no attempt to give 
a complete account in every case of the men or their works 
which these various periods have produced ; but rather to esti- 
mate and interpret the characteristic contributions which each 
age may have made to the permanent store of philosophical 
knowledge. Such a process of interpretation, therefore, must 
be necessarily selective. And in the light of the specific pur- 
poses of this series the principle of selection suggests itself, 
namely, to emphasise especially those doctrines which have 
appeared as effective factors in the evolution of philosophical 
thought as a whole. Moreover, these various periods are inti- 
mately connected; the history is a continuous one. While 
there are several distinct epochs of philosophy, there is but 
one movement of philosophical thought, and it is hoped that 
the present series will serve, in some slight measure at least, to 
deepen the impression of that fundamental unity which char- 
acterises the progress of philosophy through the many phases 
of its development. 

VOLUMES AND AUTHORS 

THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY 

By F. J. E. Woodbridge, Professor in Columbia University. 

THE PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY 

By A. E. Taylor, Professor of Moral Philosophy, St. Andrew's 
University. 

THE ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY 

By Paul Shorey, Professor of Greek, University of Chicago. 



THE EPOCHS OF PHILOSOPHY 

STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

By R. D. Hicks, Fellow and late Lecturer, Trinity College, 
Cambridge. (Now ready.) 

NEO-PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY 

By F. W. Bussell, Vice-Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford. 

THE MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 
(Author to be announced later.) 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE RENAISSANCE 

By Charles M. Bakewell, Professor of Philosophy, Yale Uni- 
versity. 

THE RISE OF THE HISTORICAL METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY 
By J. E. Creighton, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Cornell 
University. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF RATIONALISM 

By Frank Thilly, Professor of Ethics, Cornell University. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 

By John Grier Hibben, Professor of Logic, Princeton Uni- 
versity. (Now ready.) 

THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 

By Josiah Royce, Professor of the History of Philosophy, Harvard 
University. 

THE IDEALISTIC MOVEMENT OF THOUGHT IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 
By J. B. Baillie, Professor of Moral Philosophy, Aberdeen Uni- 
versity. 

An additional volume (title to be announced later) is ex- 
pected from A. S. Pringle-Pattison, Professor of Logic and 
Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. 



STOIC AND EPICUREAN 



AXX', c5 (pt\e ) 7/v 8 iyd, fiirpov rwv toioiHtwv airdKetirov Kal 
driovv tov 6ptos ov ir6.vv /xerplivs yLyverai- dreX^s yap ov8£v 
ovBevbs /j.4rpov. — Plato, Republic, VI, 504, C. 



EPOCHS OF PHILOSOPHY 



STOIC AND EPICUREAN 



BY 

R. D. HICKS, M.A. 

FELLOW AND FORMERLY LECTURER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1910 



. ' 



Copyright, ioio, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

Published February, 1910 




'CI.A259137 



PREFACE 

The philosophical systems of Zeno and Epicurus 
may profitably be studied together. For, in spite of 
obvious differences, over which their adherents for 
centuries waged internecine., warfare, it is easy to 
discern the fundamental similarity between them. 
Both schools sought by devious paths one and the 
same goal. Both exalted practice above theory, and 
conceded to sense and experience their full right. 
Both, in short, were crude forms of realism, which 
for the time (and not for that time alone) had come 
into its inheritance and held full sway over the minds 
of men. The temper of the age favoured such a 
reaction from extreme intellectualism. The success 
of the new schools, if not immediate, was assured 
from the first, reaching its height when Hellenistic 
culture was taken up by the practical Romans. y My 
exposition of these two parallel systems of thought 
is primarily based on independent study of the orig- 
inal authorities. In this department of the history 
of philosophy much good work has been done in the 
last quarter of a century. I have made it my busi- 
ness to compare the results of recent investigation 
with the sources themselves, now rendered accessible, 
as they never have been before, through the labours 
of such competent scholars as Diels, Wachsmuth, 
Usener, and von Arnim. Even with these welcome 
aids, the task of research is by no means easy, owing 
to the scantiness and the peculiar nature of the mate- 
rials which time has spared. To take the early 



vi PREFACE 

Stoics, Zeno and Chrysippus; much of the evidence 
is derived from opponents who were naturally more 
alert to detect and expose inconsistencies than care- 
ful to state impartially the doctrines they impugned. 
When ampler means of information become available, 
new difficulties arise; for while it is certain that the 
Stoics of Cicero's time had diverged from the stand- 
ards of orthodoxy prescribed by their predecessors, 
it is not equally certain wherein precisely this diver- 
gence consisted. Thus Cicero puts into the mouth 
of Cato a lucid exposition of Stoic ethics, but what 
particular Stoic was Cicero's authority, and how far 
this authority reproduced or modified the original 
doctrine of Zeno and Chrysippus, is matter of dis- 
pute. Nor are these difficulties removed by con- 
sulting Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the 
authors whom we know at first hand and in fullest 
detail. It is difficult to see how, from a mass of 
precepts, exhortations and moral reflections the un- 
derlying structure of dogma can be inferred with 
such clearness and precision as readily to serve for 
comparison with other authorities. The most care- 
ful inquiry must, therefore, leave room for doubt, on 
questions of grave importance. In the first three 
chapters of this work the reader will find a nucleus 
of fact, well attested by documentary evidence, and 
my constant endeavour has been to bring him, wher- 
ever possible, face to face with the utterances of the 
Stoics themselves, so that he may judge for himself 
of the correctness of my interpretation. 

In the fourth chapter I have followed substan- 
tially the same course, availing myself of the excel- 
lent versions of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius by 
Long and Rendall. Seneca, on the other hand, 
though still popular in France, has with us of late 



PREFACE vii 

fallen into neglect. Even of his epistles we have 
no standard translation, a fact which well deserves 
the attention of English and American scholars. 

The rival school of Epicurus has been more for- 
tunate. Not only have we the summaries of its 
founder, but the task of reconstruction is rendered 
comparatively easy by the poem of Lucretius, which 
the English reader can study for himself in the ad- 
mirable prose version of H. A. J. Munro. Here, 
while reserving the right to form my own judgment 
from the evidence, I have, in the main, followed the 
guidance of Munro and Giussani. Some points of 
detail are obscure, but on the whole no ancient sys- 
tem is more easily comprehended or appraised. In 
my sixth chapter I have tried to render adequately 
one valuable Epicurean document, the letter to 
Herodotus, and occasional illustrations and parallels 
have been added to make its meaning clearer. In 
dealing with Epicurean theology in the seventh 
chapter, we quit the region of ascertained fact for 
dubious speculation and ingenious conjecture. Cau- 
tion is therefore necessary, since the promised ex- 
ploration of Herculaneum may some day bring to 
light the missing clue to this puzzling riddle. 

Not the least noteworthy feature in these two 
philosophies is the long duration of their exclusive, 
if divided, supremacy. In the school of Epicurus 
there are no changes to record. Everything goes to 
show that the doctrine of the founder was guarded 
intact as he had left it. Even the genius of Lucre- 
tius did but enshrine it in an imperishable memorial. 
It was far otherwise with Stoicism, which provoked 
fierce opposition and was continually modified by 
pressure from without and within. /No narrative of 
its rise and development would be complete which 



viH PREFACE 

failed to take account of these conflicts. It has, 
therefore, been incumbent upon me to linger awhile 
over the adversaries and critics of the Stoics, to 
describe the successive phases of Academic Scepti- 
cism and Eclecticism, and above all, to emphasise 
the influence of Carneades. In this way the eighth 
and ninth chapters may be regarded as forming an 
integral portion of my plan. For the last chapter 
a similar excuse may be tendered. After permitting 
the other opponents of the Stoics to state their objec- 
tions it would have been inconsistent to pass over 
iEnesidemus and not to allow Sextus Empiricus and 
the Pyrrhoneans to say the last word. For the use 
of students a select bibliography has been appended, 
as well as a chronological table of the more note- 
worthy thinkers and writers. A historical sketch 
ranging over five centuries stands in need of some 
such aid, if it be no more than the merest framework 
of names and dates. 

The proprietors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica 
have courteously granted me permission to use for 
my present purpose the article on Stoics, which I 
contributed to the Encyclopaedia some twenty years 
ago. I gratefully acknowledge my obligations to 
Mrs. Adam for allowing me to include in this volume 
a verse translation of the Hymn of Cleanthes, which 
her husband, the late Dr. James Adam, had privately 
printed. I am further indebted to Prof. H. N. 
Gardiner for his kindness in reading through the 
proofs and suggesting various improvements. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Chronological Table xv 

CHAPTER I 
The Earlier Stoics and Pantheism . . 3 

Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, 4; Cynics and Stoics, 9; in- 
fluence of Heraclitus, 10; Cleanthes's Hymn to Zeus, 14; 
its religious fervour, 16; Stoic pantheism, whence de- 
rived, 18; body the sole reality, 22; yet instinct with 
energy, 24; cosmology: force and matter, how related, 
26; universal intermingling of qualities, 28; cosmogony, 
30; the cycle of finite existence perpetually repeated, 33; 
natural theology, 39; moral order of the world, 41; the 
existence of moral evil, 43; how regarded by Chrysippus, 
44; and by Marcus Aurelius, 46. 

CHAPTER II 

Stoic Psychology and Epistemology . . 54 

The art of life at once practical and comprehensive, 54; 
logic, 55; new table of categories, 56; Lekton, the mat- 
ter or content of predication, 58; nature of the soul, 60; 
its unity, 62; its diverse functions miscalled "parts," 63; 
theory of knowledge: preconceptions and general no- 
tions, 66; presentations to sense and the test of their 
truth, 69; knowledge a system of presentations to sense 
or to reason, 72. 

CHAPTER III 
Moral Idealism 74 

The six heads of scientific ethics, 75; (1 and 2) the end of 
action determined by the teleological view of the uni- 
verse, 76; "Follow Nature," how interpreted, 77; how 



x CONTENTS 

PAGE 

individual man, non-moral at birth, develops into a 
moral being, 80; instinctive impulse and rational choice, 
81; fallacies in the argument considered, 82; (3) virtue 
disinterested, 85; one and indivisible, 86; admits of no 
degrees, 87; progress toward virtue, 88; (4) the con- 
ception of relative value in our estimate of external 
things, 90; the judgment of value converts them into 
material for the exercise of virtue, 92; (5) the suitable 
and consistent in the sphere of action, 93; the latent con- 
ception of duty and obligation thence evolved, 94; the 
suitable, how related to the right, 95; the circumstances 
of the agent and his environment a determining factor, 
97; application to suicide, 98; (6) feelings classified, 
102; vicious emotions voluntary: rational beings free to 
disobey reason, 104; originality of the Stoics, 105; their 
definitions compared, 106; rational emotions, e.g., joy, 
recognised, 107; other affections apparently interme- 
diate, 108; physical pleasure, how regarded, no; its 
condemnation, if it is a necessary concomitant, unjus- 
tifiable, in. 

CHAPTER IV 
The Teaching of the Later Stoics . . 113 

Stoic propaganda, 113; the appeal of Epictetus, 114; need 
of philosophic instruction, 116; the stages of progress or 
probation, 118; probationers classified by Seneca, 120; 

^ three stages in the course of instruction formulated by 
Epictetus, 121; the third and most advanced stage 
logical training, 123; duties to self, 125; personal dignity 
and modesty, 128; independence and the dignity of 
labour, 130; the essence of true piety, 132; polytheism, 
how interpreted, 135; prayer and offerings, how de- 
fended, 136; social duties rest on primary relationships, 
137; defence of the family; female education, 138; civic 
duties present a dilemma: cosmopolitanism in conflict 
with restricted patriotism, 140; attitude to war and 
slavery, 142; the duty of goodwill to all men and of 
patience under injuries, 145; yet pity and forgiveness 
just as inexcusable as resentment and envy, 146; legal 



CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

penalties rigorously enforced, 148; morality culminates 
in active benevolence and the disinterested service of our 
fellowmen, 150. 

CHAPTER V 
Epicurus and Hedonism 153 

Career of Epicurus, 153; his character, 159; epitomes of 
his system, 161; his talent for organisation, 162; his 
earnestness and contempt for accomplishments, 163; 
happiness nominally identified with pleasure, 164; diver- 
gence from Aristippus and the Cyrenaics, 165 ; happiness 
negatively determined as freedom from pain, 166; influ- 
ence of Democritus, 167; the letter to Menceceus, 168; 
the individual and society, 174; sketch of the rise of 
civilisation, 175; law and justice traced back to com- 
pact, 177; civil government on the whole beneficial, 180; 
but the compulsory ties of family and state inferior to 
the voluntary association of friendship, 181 ; benevolence, 
183; the golden maxims, 184; fragments from (Eno- 
anda, 189; other characteristic utterances, 190; con- 
tempt for fame, 195; strictures on Greek statesmen, 196; 
on Stoic virtue, 196; personality of Epicurus, 198; 
modern parallels: Bentham, 198; Herbert Spencer, 199. 

CHAPTER VI 
The Atomic Theory 203 

^.ncient atomism, how related to modern scientific theories, 
203; unpopular in Greece, 205; adoption by Epicurus, 
207; his rejection of contemporary mathematics and 
astronomy, 209; his canons or rules of evidence, 213; 
veracity of sensation, 215; importance of clear and dis- 
tinct preconceptions, 217; the letter to Herodotus: the 
, sum total of existence, bodies and empty space, is neither 
increased nor diminished, but remains constant, 219; 
bodies are either composite wholes or their indivisible 
elements, the atoms, 220; infinity of atoms and of space, 
221; shape and motion of atoms, 222; there are infinite 
worlds, 228; theory of sense-perception and of emana- 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

tions from the surface of composite bodies, 229; seeing, 
235; hearing and smelling, 238; unchangeable proper- 
ties of atoms, 240; infinite divisibility of matter rejected, 
243; discrete, perceptible minima, 246; discrete minima 
of the atom, 248; relativity of upward and downward 
motion, 253; velocity of atoms constant, 255 ; why atoms 
collide, 258; atomic declination as set forth by Lucretius, 
261; nature of the soul, 264; the account of Lucretius 
compared, 267; permanent properties and variable acci- 
dents of composite things, 270; nature of time, 272; 
origin of language, 275; celestial and meteorological 
phenomena independent of divine agency, 276; rules to 
be followed in the investigation of their causes, 277, how 
the baneful effect of superstitious terrors and the fear of 
death may be removed, 279. 

CHAPTER VII 
The Epicurean Theology 282 

The gods of Epicurus not supernatural beings controlling 
nature from outside, 282; influence of Democritus, 283; 
modifications introduced by Epicurus, 286; grounds of 
his belief in gods, 288; their attributes, 289; the problem 
of their physical constitution, 291; Cicero's evidence, 
how interpreted by Lachelier and Scott, 293; difficulties 
in this interpretation, 296; attitude of Epicurus to the 
popular religion, 298; his conception of worship, 301; 
rejection of creation and Providence, 304; toleration of 
freethinkers in antiquity, 306; occasional outbursts of 
persecution, 307; the impostor Alexander of Abonu- 
teichos, as described by Lucian, 308; Diogenes of CEno- 
anda, a zealous Epicurean: his last appeal cited, 309. 

CHAPTER VIII 

Scepticism in the Academy: Carneades . 312 

Scepticism a term of various meanings, 312; Pyrrho of 
Elis, 314; his disciple Timon, 315; the Old Academy 
and the innovations of Arcesilas, 317; Carneades, the 
adversary of the Stoics, 322; his negative and destructive 



CONTENTS xiii 

PAGE 

criticism, 323; of Stoic epistemology, 324: theology, 326; 
and the doctrine of Providence, 334; his limitations as a 
critic, 337; positive side of his teaching, 341 ; his calculus 
of probability, 342; his defence of human freedom, 344; 
his formal classification of ethical theories, 347; general 
estimate of Carneades as a thinker, 351. 

CHAPTER IX 
Eclecticism 353 

Tendency to a fusion of conflicting doctrines, 353; the 
Academy under Philo of Larissa and Antiochus of Asca- 
lon, 355; Cicero a typical Eclectic, 358; Plutarch of 
Chaeronea, 360; modifications of Stoicism, 361; its 
introduction to the Roman world, 363; Panaetius, 364; 
Posidonius, 366; later phases of Roman Stoicism, 367. 

CHAPTER X 

tEnesidemus and the Revival of Pyrrho- 
nism 371 

Sceptics in the medical profession, 371; writings of Sextus 
Empiricus, 372; his merits and defects, 373; ^Enesi- 
demus, 374; his probable date, 375; the ten tropes, 376; 
the five tropes of Agrippa, 377; arguments of /Enesi- 
demus to show that no truth exists, 380; estimate of 
their validity, 382, his arguments upon causality, 385; 
eight tropes in refutation of this notion, 386; defects in 
his assumptions, 388; his polemic against demonstrative 
signs, 389; his acceptance of reminiscent signs: how re- 
lated to a scientific theory of induction, 393; originality 
of iEnesidemus, 395; Heracliteanism attributed to him 
by Sextus, 396, sceptical position of his successors un- 
shaken, 397. 

Select Bibliography 401 

Index 405 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 1 



RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOLS 
B.C. 

341. Birth of Epicurus at Sa- 
mos (Gamelion 7). 

336/5. Birth of Zeno at Citium 
[348/7 Unger, 356/5 
Brinker.] 

333/2. Birth of Cleanthes at 
Assos. 



330. Birth of Metrodorus at 
Lampsacus. 



323. Epicurus a student at 
Athens. 

322. Expulsion of Athenian set- 
tlers from Samos. Epi- 
curus joins his father at 
Colophon. 

314. Zeno at Athens studies un- 
der the Cynics, Megari- 
ans and Academics. 



CONTEMPORARY EVENTS 



B.C. 

'347- 



Death of Plato. With 
Speusippus his successor 
begins the Old Academy. 
338. Chaeronea. Macedonian 
supremacy. Xenocrates 
succeeds Speusippus. 

335-323. Aristotle at Athens. 
Foundation of the Peri- 
patetic School in the Ly- 
ceum. 

334. Alexander sets out to con- 
quer Asia. Pyrrho of 
Elis follows his march as 
far as India. 

328. Crates of Thebes, a pupil 
of Diogenes the Cynic. 

323. Death of Alexander at 

Babylon. 
322. Death of Aristotle. Theo- 

phrastus succeeds. 
c. 320/16. Birth of Timon at 

Phlius. 
314. Death of Xenocrates. Po- 

lemo succeeds. 



1 The Roman civil year began, like our own, in January. The Attic 
civil year began after the summer solstice, say in July: hence the occa- 
sional double dating. Moreover, a Greek Olympiad covers a space of 
four years. 



XVI 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOLS 
B.C. 

310. Epicurus teaches at Mity- 
lene and Lampsacus. 

307/6. Epicurus at Athens 
opens his school in the 
garden. 

300/299. Epicurus completes 
Book XV of his work On 
Nature. 

296/5. Epicurus completes 
Book XXVIII On Na- 
ture. 

c. 294. Zeno lectures in the Stoa 
Pcecile at Athens. 



277. Death of Metrodorus. 

276. Zeno, invited to the Court 
of Macedonia, sends Per- 
saeus in his place. Aratus 
of Soli at the same court. 



270/69. Death of Epicurus. 
Hermarchus succeeds. 



264/3. Death of Zeno. Cle- 
an the s succeeds. Aristo, 
Herillus and Dionysius 
secede and found inde- 
pendent schools. 



B.C. 

3°7- 



CONTEMPORARY EVENTS 

D i o d o r u s Cronus and 
Stilpo famous in the Me- 
garian School. 



294. Siege of Athens and conse- 
quent famine. 

288/4. Death of Theophrastus. 
Strato of Lampsacus suc- 
ceeds. 

277/6. Antigonus Gonatas, now 
King of Macedonia. The 
kingdoms formed out of 
Alexander's conquests 
(Egypt, Syria, etc.) per- 
manently established. 

276/5. Death of Polemo. 
Crates of Athens suc- 
ceeds, followed a few 
years later by Arcesilas 
of Pitane. 

c. 275/70. Death of Pyrrho at 
Elis. 

275 (or later). Timon settles at 
Athens, where he writes 
his philosophic satires or 
Silli. 

270/68. Death of Strato. Lyco 
succeeds. 

241/0. Death of Arcesilas. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xvii 



RISE OF THE NEW SCHOOLS 
B.C. 

232/1. Death of Cleanthes. 

Chrysippus third head 

of the Stoa. 
208/4. D e a t h of Chrysippus. 

Zeno of Tarsus fourth 

head of the Stoa. 



CONTEMPORARY EVENTS 
B.C. 

c. 230/225. Death of Timon. 



202. Zama. Rome victorious 
over Carthage. 



CONFLICT OF THE SCHOOLS AND DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE 

190/85. Birth of Panaetius at Rhodes. 

? 180. Death of Zeno of Tarsus. Diogenes the Babylonian fifth 
head of the Stoa. 

168. Pydna. Macedonia crushed by Rome. 

166. Polybius arrives at Rome. (Returned to Greece 150.) 

155. Diogenes the Stoic, Carneades the Academic and Critolaus 
the Peripatetic, at Rome as envoys from Athens. 

? 152. Death of Diogenes the Babylonian. Antipater of Tarsus 
sixth head of the Stoa. 

146. Destruction of Corinth and Carthage. 

144. Panaetius and Polybius at Rome. Scipio the Younger a 
patron of Greek learning and philosophy. 

141. Panaetius completes two books On Duty. He accompanies 
Scipio to the East (returns 139). 

135. Birth of Posidonius at Apamea. 

129. Death of Scipio the Younger. 

129/8. Death of Carneades. Clitomachus (Hasdrubal) of Car- 
thage the next head of the Academy. 

? 128. Death of Antipater of Tarsus. Panaetius seventh head of 
the Stoa. Hecato and Posidonius pupils of Panaetius. 

? in. Death of Panaetius. Mnesarchus and Dardanus his suc- 
cessors. 

106. Birth of Cicero. 

100-90. Posidonius travels in the West. 

99. Approximate date of the birth of Lucretius [94 Jerome]. 

87/6. Mithridatic War. Visit of Posidonius to Rome. Philo of La- 
rissa, now head of the Academy, removes to Rome. Antiochus 
of Ascalon protests in his Sosus against Philo's innovations. 
Triumph of Eclecticism over Scepticism in the Academy. 

78. Cicero studies at Athens and Rhodes; attends lectures by 
Antiochus of Ascalon and Posidonius. 



xviii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

69. Antiochus of Ascalon present at the Battle of Tigranocerta, 

not long before his death. 
55. Death of Lucretius on the Ides of October, in his 44th year. 

His poem De Rerum Natura subsequently edited by Cicero. 

Philodemus of Gadara, the author of numerous Epicurean 
treatises, severely censured, though not by name, in Cicero's 
speech against his patron Calpurnius Piso. 
54. Cicero, De Republica. 
52. Cicero, De Legibus. 
c. 50. Death of Posidonius at Rhodes. 
46. Death of Cato at Utica. 

45. Cicero, Academica, De Finibus, Tusculan Disputations. 
44. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, De Divinatione, De Officiis 

Assassination of Caesar. 
43. Death of Cicero. 
? 42. /Enesidemus, Pyrrhonean Hypotyposes. 

PHILOSOPHY UNDER THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE 
A.D. 

34. Birth of the poet Persius. 

41. Seneca writes Consolatio ad Marciam. He is banished to 

Corsica. 
49. Seneca, recalled from exile, becomes tutor of Nero, the future 

Emperor. He writes De Ira, De Tranquillitate Animi, and 

De Brevitate Vita. 

54. Accession of Nero. Seneca becomes his minister. 
54-59. Quinquennium Neronis. Seneca in power. 

55. Seneca, De dementia. 

c. 56. Seneca commences his Epistles to Lucilius. 

62. Seneca attempts in vain to retire from the court. He writes 

De Otio Sapientis. 
Death of Persius. 

63. Seneca writes the last four books of his Naturales Qucestiones. 

65. Conspiracy of Piso betrayed, in which Lucan is implicated. 

Many eminent Stoics, including Seneca, put to death. 
Others are exiled. 

66. Death of Paetus Thrasea and Soranus Barea. 

69. Musonius Rufus, the teacher of Epictetus, intervenes in the 
civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian. 

75. Expulsion of philosophers from Rome. Helvidius Priscus is 
banished and afterward forced to commit suicide. Muso- 
nius Rufus is excepted from the decree. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xix 

A.D. 

c. 90. Plutarch lectures at Rome during the reign of Domitian. 

93. Arulenus Rusticus put to death for eulogising Thrasea. 
Domitian issues a second edict for the expulsion of philoso- 
phers. Epictetus retires to Nicopolis, where he afterward 
worked successfully as a teacher for many years. 

117. Accession of Hadrian. Epictetus still living, if, as is said, he 
was favoured by Hadrian. 

130. Arrian, who had committed to writing the Discourses and 

Encheiridion of his teacher Epictetus, while resident at 
Athens, becomes Consul Suffectus under Hadrian. 

131. Birth of Galen. 

161. Accession of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; the philosopher on 
the throne. 

164. Galen comes to Rome, where he resided for the rest of his life. 

172-175. Campaigns of the Emperor Marcus on the Danube against 
the Quadi and Marcomanni. In the intervals of these cam- 
paigns he seems to have commenced his Meditations, or at 
least Books I and II, which are subscribed "among the 
Quadi" and "at Carnuntum." 

176. Four chairs of philosophy at the University of Athens endowed 
by the Emperor for (1) Stoics, (2) Epicureans, (3) Aca- 
demics, (4) Peripatetics. 

180. Death of Marcus Aurelius. 

180 (or shortly afterward). Lucian writes his Alexander. 

180-200. Approximate date for the writings of Sextus Empiricus, 
the seventh in the Sceptical succession from ^Enesidemus. 

c. 200. Approximate date of the inscription set up at (Enoanda by 
Diogenes, an Epicurean teacher. 

201. Death of Galen. 

221-235. Alexander Severus, Emperor. Approximate date for the 
Lives of Philosophers compiled by Diogenes Laertius, who 
ends his list of the Sceptics with Saturninus, the pupil of 
Sextus Empiricus. 



STOIC AND EPICUREAN 



STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

CHAPTER I 

THE EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 

It is not often that a turning point in the history 
of thought synchronises with some great social 
or political change. But the age of the Diadochi, 
that period of stress and storm in which the Stoic and 
Epicurean systems took their rise, is severed by a 
wide gulf from the previous course of Greek civili- 
sation. Alexander's conquests, while extending Hel- 
lenism to the farthest East, had rudely shattered the 
old order of the Greek world and made way for the 
new order of wide territorial kingdoms destined 
eventually to be swallowed up in the Roman empire. 
The city-states, which had played so honourable a 
part in the past, retained as a rule the control of their 

unicipal affairs, but the virtual loss of indepen- 
dence tended inevitably to loosen the ties of civic and 
local patriotism in the fatherland itself. The change 
in the political system involved a corresponding 
change in the position of the individual. The very 
foundation of political theory, even to Plato and 
Aristotle, had been the life of a small civic com- 
munity, and when this was undermined the alert 
Greek intelligence recognised the significant conse- 
quences for ethics. As the old, outworn sanctions 
disappeared, they were replaced by new social 

3 



4 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

obligations at once more individual and more uni- 
versal. The conception of the narrow canton-state 
enlarged to that of the nation, and in the process of 
time nationality tended to become cosmopolitan. 

Already the course of philosophic inquiry had 
been profoundly changed. The earliest Greek think- 
ers started with the study of nature: as we might 
say in modern phrase, they set out to discover the 
constitution and properties of matter. Then in 
that age of enlightenment which we associate with 
the name of the Sophists there came a reaction, 
and attention was directed to literature and culture — 
in a word, to humanism. Socrates confined his 
inquiries to human conduct and to man, emphasis- 
ing, as no one had done before him, the importance 
of opinion for determining action. Henceforth the 
main interest of speculation embraced the subject 
as well as the object, the problem of knowledge 
even more than the problem of nature. Socrates 
had declared knowledge, or correct opinion, the 
sole basis for moral conduct, and his commanding 
personality combined with the schools which sprang 
from him to perpetuate this untenable position. It 
is in Stoicism, and not in the schools founded by the 
immediate disciples of the master, that we find the 
Socratic tradition most faithfully represented. Ac- 
cordingly, from this point of view we proceed to 
consider the historical antecedents of Stoicism. 

Zeno, the founder of the school, was a native 
of Citium, a Greek colony in Cyprus. In that 
island the Greek settlers had a checkered history 
and found it difficult to make headway against 
men of alien, especially Semitic nationality. Pos- 
sibly Zeno himself, in spite of his Greek name, may 
have been of mixed descent, for he was often taunted 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 5 

with being a Phoenician. The chronology is not 
quite certain, but we have the testimony of his dis- 
ciple Persaeus that Zeno was twenty-two when he 
came to Athens, and died at the age of seventy-two. 
The year of his death may be fixed at 264 B. C, and, 
reckoning backward, we obtain 336 B. C. for his 
birth and 314 B. C. for his arrival at Athens. There 
he studied under Crates the Cynic, Stilpo and Dio- 
dorus Cronus of the Megarian school, and Polemo 
the Academic. After a long time spent in study 
(the precise statement of twenty years seems a 
round number), he opened a school of his own not 
later than 294 B. C. He selected for the scene of 
his lectures a public place in Athens memorable for 
the beauty of its decoration. This was the Stoa 
Poecile, a colonnade or cloister rather than a porch, 
on the north or south-east side of the Agora or market- 
place, which the genius of Polygnotus and Micon 
had adorned with magnificent paintings or frescoes, 
among them one representing the battle of Marathon. 
From the place of instruction the school derived its 
name — called at first Zenonians, they were ever after- 
ward known as Stoics, men of the porch. The per- 
sonal appearance of Zeno is minutely described for 
us. He carried his head on one side, was lean, 
flabby, delicate, short in stature, with swarthy com- 
plexion and stout calves. After Demetrius, the 
besieger of cities, became king of Macedonia, he 
and his son, Antigonus Gonatas, made repeated 
visits to Athens, in consequence of which the latter 
became Zeno's pupil and remained his friend until 
his death. The personal relations of Zeno and 
Antigonus are honourable to both. By the Athenian 
people, also, Zeno was held in the highest esteem 
for the nobility of his character. The statement 



6 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

that they deposited the keys of their citadel with 
him is doubtless an invention, but the request of 
Antigonus that he should receive a public funeral 
may well have been granted, even if the decree to 
this effect preserved by our authority l be not genu- 
ine. The excessive frugality and even parsimony of 
his life impressed observers no less than his moral 
earnestness, dignity, and affability, and some may 
be disposed to see in them Semitic traits of character. 
Among his pupils Persaeus, also from Citium, lived 
in the same house with Zeno, who sent him as his 
substitute to the court of Antigonus when he de- 
clined the king's invitation for himself. Next may 
be mentioned Aristo of Chios, Herillus of Carthage, 
and Dionysius of Heraclea, in Pontus, all three of 
whom diverged in various ways from their master's 
teaching. Other pupils were Aratus of Soli, in Ci- 
licia, the author of an extant astronomical poem, 
Sphaerus of Bosporus, the friend and adviser of the 
reforming Spartan king Cleomenes, and lastly Clean- 
thes of Assos, who succeeded to the headship of the 
school and held it from 264 to 232 B. C. The story 
goes that Cleanthes had been a pugilist; for nine- 
teen years he attended the lectures of Zeno by day, 
while earning a frugal livelihood by toilsome occu- 
pations at night. To some he was known as the 
second Hercules, but others gave him the nickname 
of the Ass, on account of his patience and endur- 
ance and a certain slowness and dulness of intellect, 
of which he was himself painfully conscious. His 
was, in truth, a reflective, brooding nature not devoid 
of political imagination, a fact to which the extant 
fragments of his verse bear witness. The Stoics 
held that under certain circumstances suicide was 
1 Diogenes Laertius, VII, 10-12. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 7 

justified, and, as our historical sources are both 
scanty and imperfect, this doctrine may be the only 
ground-work for the tradition that not only Cleanthes 
but also his master Zeno and his pupil Chrysippus, 
ended their days by suicide. We are told of Cleanthes 
that, when taunted with old age, he replied: "Yes, 
I am willing to be gone, but when I see myself 
sound in every part, writing and reading, I am again 
tempted to linger." At last, however, when he 
was suffering from an ulcer on the tongue, his 
physician advised him to abstain from food for a 
while as a means of cure. After two days of ab- 
stinence he was completely cured and advised by the 
physician to return to his ordinary way of life. But 
he said: "Since I have gone so far on the road, it 
would be a pity not to finish the journey." Ac- 
cordingly, he continued his fasting and died. 

At the time of Cleanthes the outlines of the sys- 
tem were still plastic. With all his reverence for 
his master, Cleanthes did not hesitate to introduce 
many modifications. In particular, he made the 
system more rigorously monistic and pantheistic, and 
we now meet with the doctrine of tension, which 
distinguishes Stoic materialism from all conception 
of matter as dead and inert. Under Cleanthes the 
school did not exactly flourish. In controversy it 
was pressed hard, not only by the Epicureans, from 
the first its uncompromising foes, but from another 
side by the Sceptics of the New Academy. But if 
the qualities of Cleanthes were not fitted to shine in 
polemic, the next head of the school made up for 
all such deficiencies. This was Chrysippus of Soli, 
in Cilicia, who lived till after 208 B. C. Of this ex- 
traordinary man the saying ran: "Had there been 
no Chrysippus, there had been no Porch"; which 



8 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

probably means, not that he saved the school from 
extinction, though this may well have been the case, 
but that he reduced its doctrine to a final and un- 
alterable form. In doing so he exercised a moder- 
ating influence, mediating between extreme utter- 
ances, reconciling conflicting opinions, removing 
inconsistencies, obviating objections, and rounding 
off" the whole with numerous contributions of his own. 
His aim was avowedly to interpret Zeno's utterances, 
but occasionally, to avoid all risk of misunderstanding, 
he had to restate them. His ingenuity and acumen 
were unequalled. "Give me the doctrines," he is 
reported to have said to Cleanthes; "I will find out 
the proofs for myself." He was short of stature, so 
much so that a jesting Epicurean, seeing a statue of 
him in the Ceramicus eclipsed by a neighbouring 
equestrian figure, remarked that a more appropriate 
name than Chrysippus, "Gold-Horse," would have 
been Crypsippus, or "Horse-hidden." He was the 
most voluminous of all ancient writers, being cred- 
ited with seven hundred separate rolls. He was not 
averse to padding, and made huge citations from 
other authors, if we may trust the anecdote that 
some one, being asked what he was reading, replied, 
"The Medea of Chrysippus," so largely had the 
Stoic drawn upon the drama of Euripides for illus- 
tration of his argument. The logic of Stoicism is 
almost entirely his creation, and he contributed 
much to recast its psychology and epistemology. 

These, then, were the men who moulded into 
shape the Stoic system, and in the form in which 
it was fashioned by them it endured for centuries. 
Its adherents grew and multiplied, and, although 
they always had to contend with powerful rivals in 
the Epicureans, Academics, and Peripatetics, they 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 9 

gradually extended their influence until in the first 
century of the imperial era their claim to be recog- 
nised as the dominant school of philosophy passed 
almost unchallenged. ^Stoicism owed this success, in 
the first place, to the strength and earnestness of its 
moral teaching. ) Every one knows that they regarded 
virtue as the only good, the one thing in life worth 
striving for; but this had already been proclaimed 
to the world by those earlier followers of Socrates, 
the Cynics. It is by comparing the basis of their 
moral teaching with that of the Cynics that the dis- 
tinctive features of the Stoics can best be understood. 
The Cynics were revolutionists who would willingly 
dissolve the ties of the family and political society 
and reduce men to the state of nature. They were 
individualists and carried their contempt for con- 
vention — and, we may add, for decency and order — 
to lengths which shocked the sentiments of the aver- 
age man. Zeno for a time imbibed and reproduced 
the doctrines of the Cynics, and wrote at least one 
celebrated work while under their influence. This 
was his Republic, most probably intended as a cor- 
rection and criticism of Plato's great dialogue bear- 
ing the same title. In it Zeno imagined a universal 
state with one government and one manner of life 
for all mankind, in which there should be no organi- 
sation of separate nationalities under their several 
laws and no distinctions, such as had hitherto pre- 
vailed, between Greek and barbarian, bond and free. 
Here the Cynic teaching finds complete expression 
and full development. The breaking down of 
existing barriers is merely a step toward the realisa- 
tion of a more perfect society, the abrogation of 
the discordant laws from separate states and nations, 
but the preliminary to the promulgation of the one 



10 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

universal law which holds this more perfect society 
together. But what is this law ? The Cynic inter- 
preted the precept "Follow Nature" negatively and 
destructively by ridiculing the institutions of his 
country and the very idea of patriotism and by mak- 
ing a violent protest in his daily life and behaviour 
against the traditional code and the established order. 
Thus nature became almost another name for anar- 
chism and unparalleled license was permitted to 
individual caprice. To Zeno, on the contrary, the 
natural was the rational and the first mark of reason 
was self-consistency. A rational life must follow a 
single harmonious plan, whereas the paths of folly 
are many and various, but always stamped with 
inconsistency and contradiction. In this postulate 
of a rational law the Stoics had a precursor in Hera- 
clitus. His term for it was Logos, sometimes rendered 
into English by Word, as in the introduction to the 
fourth gospel, more often by Reason. Heraclitus 
emphasised, as no previous thinker had done, the 
universal change and mutability of all things that 
we know, and yet he maintained as stoutly that all 
change obeys reason or law. To him the Logos is 
not only a sovereign ordinance which nature in- 
variably obeys, but also the divine reason, immanent 
in nature and man, which possesses intelligence and 
thinks — nay, is itself intelligence. 

This, at any rate, seems to follow from his frag- 
mentary utterances concerning it. The most rele- 
vant are: "Having hearkened not unto me, but to the 
Logos, it is wise to confess that all things are one." * 
"This Logos is always existent, but men fail to un- 
derstand it both before they have heard it and when 
they have heard it for the first time. For, although 

1 Fragment i, By water. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 11 

all things happen through this Logos, men seem as if 
they had no acquaintance with it when they make 
acquaintance with such works and words as I ex- 
pound when I divide each thing according to its 
nature and explain how it really is. The rest of 
mankind are unconscious of what they do when 
awake, just as they forget what they do when 
asleep." * "There is but one wisdom, to understand 
the knowledge by which all things are steered 
through all." 2 "Intelligence is common to all 
things. Those who speak with understanding must 
strongly cleave to that which is common to all 
things, even as a city cleaves to law, and much 
more strongly. For all human laws are nurtured 
by the one divine law; for this prevails as much 
as it will, and suffices for all and has something 
over." 3 "Although the Logos is universal, most 
men live as if they had a private intelligence 
of their own." 4 "Men are at variance with the 
Logos, which is their most constant companion." 5 
It is also clear that, since Heraclitus had not 
learned to separate the material from the spiritual, 
he identified his Logos with that which he con- 
ceived to be the ultimate reality, the primal ele- 
ment of fire. Of this he says that "it is ever- 
living, always was, is, and shall be"; 6 and the Logos, 
too, is, as we saw, eternal. And again, using 
"Thunderbolt" as a semi-oracular term for fire, he 
says "the thunderbolt steers all things," 7 language 
which suggests an intelligent helmsman, such as 
is his Logos. Thus the Logos on its material side is 
Fire, and Fire on its spiritual side is the Logos. 

1 Fragment 2. a Fragment 19. 3 Fragment 91. 

4 Fragment 92. 5 Fragment 93. e Fragment 20. 

7 Fragment 28. 



12 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

But this Fire Heraclitus expressly affirms to be one 
with the universal order or the universe. "This 
world-order, the same in all things, no one of gods 
or men has made; but it always was, is, and shall 
be ever-living fire, kindled in due measure and ex- 
tinguished in due measure." 1 "God is day and 
night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety 
and hunger. But he is changed, just as fire, when 
mingled with different kinds of incense, is named 
after the savour of each." 2 "To God all things are 
beautiful and good and right, but men consider 
some things wrong and others right." 9 God, then, 
is the unity in which all opposites are reconciled, 
the one unchanging ground of all change and plu- 
rality. It makes no difference whether we name Him 
Zeus, or Fire, or Logos. As Logos, He brings all 
things to pass, for He is the Wisdom which steers 
all things; as Fire, He is the substance which creates, 
sustains, and in the end, perhaps, reabsorbs into itself 
the world. 

The exact interpretation of the Heraclitean frag- 
ments is a matter of controversy, and it may 
readily be conceded that the above conclusions 
are strongly tinctured with Stoic dogma. Some 
scholars deny that in the time of Heraclitus the word 
Logos had acquired the signification of Reason. 
It meant no more, they say, than "word" or "dis- 
course." But on the other hand there is strong and 
explicit testimony that Zeno and Cleanthes studied 
Heraclitus and derived from him many of their 
cardinal doctrines. The function of Zeno, as of 
almost every contemporary philosopher, was not 
to originate, but to combine. Greece had long out- 
lived the first fresh ardour of speculation and dis- 

1 Fragment 20. 2 Fragment 36. 8 Fragment 61. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 13 

covery. Moreover, since the time of Socrates the 
practical needs of the individual had become the 
paramount consideration. The question: "What 
must I do ?" was more pressing even than that other: 
"What can I know?" Judged superficially, the 
Stoic account of the universe has nothing new about 
it. Some parts could be traced to Heraclitus, 
others to Aristotle. But even in appropriating the 
results of previous philosophers the Stoics imparted 
to them a new and fuller meaning by their whole 
mental attitude. Aristotle's dualism of matter and 
form, the two principles into which he analyses in- 
dividual and particular existence, they transformed 
into the antithesis of matter and force or energy, 
which they united in the single conception of body. 
They fastened upon the pantheism everywhere un- 
derlying the utterances of Heraclitus and presented 
it in its most mature and unambiguous form. 
Whether Zeno himself took this decisive step the re- 
mains of his writings do not sufficiently indicate. It 
may be that he never went beyond recognising God 
and formless matter as the two distinct principles, co- 
existing in all that is. But in the view of Cleanthes 
and Chrysippus, so far as we can judge from the 
evidence, not only do these two factors coexist, but 
ultimately they are regarded as one and the same. 
We thus arrive at a conception of the universe as one 
Being endowed with life and reason, one whole to 
which all living and all intelligent creatures are 
related as members, a conception which is most 
familiar to English readers from Pope's lines: 

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is and God the soul. 1 

1 Essay on Man, I, 267, 



14 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

It is a fortunate accident that in the wreck 
of the entire literature of the early Stoics the famous 
hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes has been preserved. 
Short as it is, this is the only document of any eminent 
Stoic which we possess at first hand and in full. It 
cannot be too often remembered that we are cut 
off by unkind fortune from direct access to all the 
other original authorities. For our knowledge of 
Stoicism we depend either upon scanty fragments 
of the masters' own writings laboriously collected by 
modern scholars from the whole range of classical 
literature or upon the diligence of compilators who, 
centuries after the foundation of Stoicism, put to- 
gether for their own purposes and in their own lan- 
guage the main outlines of the system as it appeared 
to them. Other writings, it is true, have come down 
to us from Stoic authors, but in some cases they have 
small philosophical importance, e. g., Aratus, Cleo- 
medes, Heraclides; in others they belong to the 
Roman age, and no one will maintain that Persius 
or Seneca, Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius committed 
themselves to a single statement of doctrine on their 
own authority. The hymn of Cleanthes has been 
thus translated by the late Dr. James Adam: 

O God most glorious, called by many a name, 

Nature's great King, through endless years the same; 

Omnipotence, who by thy just decree 

Controllest all, hail, Zeus, for unto thee 

Behoves thy creatures in all lands to call. 

We are thy children, we alone, of all 

On earth's broad ways that wander to and fro, 

Bearing thine image wheresoe'er we go. 

Wherefore with songs of praise thy power I will 

forth shew. 
Lo! yonder heaven, that round the earth is wheeled, 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 15 

Follows thy guidance, still to thee doth yield 

Glad homage; thine unconquerable hand 

Such flaming minister, the levin-brand, 

Wieldeth, a sword two-edged, whose deathless might 

Pulsates through all that Nature brings to light; 

Vehicle of the universal Word, that flows 

Through all, and in the light celestial glows 

Of stars both great and small. O King of Kings 

Through ceaseless ages, God, whose purpose brings 

To birth, whate'er on land or in the sea 

Is wrought, or in high heaven's immensity; 

Save what the sinner works infatuate. 

Nay, but thou knowest to make crooked straight: 

Chaos to thee is order: in thine eyes 

The unloved is lovely, who did'st harmonise 

Things evil with things good, that there should be 

One Word through all things everlastingly. 

One Word — whose voice alas! the wicked spurn; 

Insatiate for the good their spirits yearn: 

Yet seeing see not, neither hearing hear 

God's universal law, which those revere, 

By reason guided, happiness who win. 

The rest, unreasoning, diverse shapes of sin 

Self-prompted follow: for an idle name 

Vainly they wrestle in the lists of fame: 

Others inordinately Riches woo, 

Or dissolute, the joys of flesh pursue. 

Now here, now there they wander, fruitless still, 

For ever seeking good and finding ill. 

Zeus the all-bountiful, whom darkness shrouds, 

Whose lightning lightens in the thunder clouds; 

Thy children save from error's deadly sway: 

Turn thou the darkness from their souls away: 

Vouchsafe that unto knowledge they attain; 

For thou by knowledge art made strong to reign 

O'er all, and all things rulest righteously. 

So by thee honoured, we will honour thee, 

Praising thy works continually with songs, 



16 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

As mortals should; nor higher meed belongs 
E'en to the gods, than justly to adore 
The universal law for evermore. 

The first thing which strikes us is the religious 
tone. The great Stoic dogmas are presented, not 
as physics or metaphysics, but as theology, the 
truths of natural religion in poetic form. The 
Stoic's attitude to God is that of a child to his father, 
dependent and yet responsible. It is his duty, but 
also his privilege and reward, to praise God, and his 
one prayer is for knowledge, whereby alone he can be 
saved from the miseries of sin. The next thing to 
note is the remarkable blending of characteristics 
which to us seem utterly opposed. Zeus is addressed 
as a personal God, and yet by the whole tenor and by 
certain Heraclitean echoes — "the levin," that is fire, 
like the thunderbolt, "one Word" (Logos) "through 
all things everlastingly, one Word whose voice alas! 
the wicked spurn" — we are forced to believe that 
He is not only the author of all things, but also in 
essence identical with all things, save only the 
works of wicked men in their folly. 1 But, seeing that 
this same Zeus "did harmonise things evil with 
things good," is in fact the unity of opposites, the 
one seeming exception vanishes from the higher 
stand-point. Again, while all the universe is ruled 
by Zeus and all things everywhere are wrought by 
His purpose, yet it is evident that man holds a privi- 
leged position. It is our bounden duty to requite 
God with honour because we have been honoured by 
Him. In other words, man is the only rational 
creature on earth and the possession of reason 
stamps him with the divine image. The result has 

1 "Save what the sinner works infatuate" in the translation above. 



'1% ~1 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 17 

been called by a quite permissible oxymoron a 
curious personal kind of pantheism. Something of 
the same sort is to be found not only in Heraclitus, 
but earlier still in Xenophanes, who affirmed the 
unity of God as a Being possessed of perception and 
intelligence not less strongly than he proclaimed the 
unity of the world, of all that exists. 

Centuries afterward in modern England a writer 
wholly unacquainted with ancient philosophy, either 
blending two phases of belief or making the transi- 
tion from one to the other, embodied the very 
essence of Stoicism in lines which deserve a place be- 
side the hymn of Cleanthes. 

O God, within my breast, 

Almighty, ever-present Deity! 
Life, that in me has rest, 

As I — undying life — have power in thee. 

With wide-embracing love 

Thy spirit animates eternal years, 
Pervades and broods above, 

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears. 

Though earth and man were gone, 
And suns and universes ceased to be, 

And thou wert left alone, 

Every existence would exist in thee. 

There is not room for Death, 

No atom that his might could render void : 
Thou — Thou art Being, Breath, 

And what Thou art may never be destroyed. 1 

The hymn of Cleanthes strikes a note of ex- 
ultant joy, of serene and unwavering optimism. 

1 Emily Bronte, Poems. 



18 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

This temper is assuredly not that which is usually 
associated with the Stoics, conceived too often in 
the popular imagination as severe, morose, apathetic 
persons, stifling all emotions with pride, or else, on 
the lines of Cicero's famous delineation of Cato, as 
stern, unbending, impracticable precisians — in short, 
moral prigs, the Pharisees of the pagan world. It is 
matter of history that in their dealings with their 
fellow-men they often presented these unamiable 
traits, but from the few glimpses we have of their 
inmost feelings and that attitude to the universe 
which constitutes the essence of religion, what is 
most clearly distinguishable is joy and gratitude, 
serene confidence and unwavering submission. Here 
again is a marked divergence from popular concep- 
tion, which has seized upon apathy as a prominent 
trait of the Stoic without comprehending the term 
aright. It will hereafter be seen that the suppres- 
sion of all emotion never was and never could be 
a Stoic tenet. The religious tone of cheerful opti- 
mism is as conspicuous in Epictetus as in Cleanthes. 
Not more firm is the conviction of the Hebrew 
Psalmist that all things must go well, since the Lord 
reigneth. 

It is now time to examine more closely the na- 
ture of this pantheism and, if possible, to determine 
its exact relation to other modes of Greek thought. 
It bears a superficial resemblance to more than one 
tendency or current of previous speculation. The 
Ionian natural philosophers in search of a single 
principle by which they could explain the manifold 
variety of nature are usually described as hylozoists, a 
term which implies that, overlooking the distinction 
between organisms and inorganic substances, they 
endowed all matter with the qualities of living things 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 19 

by supposing it capable of self-determination. 1 But, 
as system after system developed, the inquiry be- 
came more complicated and a cause of motion, life, 
and consciousness was postulated, in contradis- 
tinction from the things which exhibited motion and 
life. Nowhere is this dualism more prominent than 
in Aristotle, who defined God as an immaterial 
essence. Aristotle's deity by the attraction which he 
exerts upon the world is the cause of motion, the 
ultimate cause of all the ordered regularity and life 
of nature. In framing such a system Aristotle was 
confessedly influenced by Anaxagoras, who, in order 
to explain the progress from chaos to universal 
order, introduced his unique element of Nous or 
Intellect, without definitely determining its exact 
nature, so that it is still matter of controversy whether 
he intended by it a spiritual principle or merely a 
material substance, fluid or gaseous, of greater purity 
and fineness than the rest and endowed with the 
power of ordering and knowing. The point to 
notice is that both Anaxagoras and Aristotle diverge 
from the beaten track of Ionian speculations by 
postulating a transcendent cause or first principle. 
And this is still more true of Plato. For him the 
highest reality existed in a world of ideas set over 
against the phenomenal world in which, however, 
the ideas were somehow immanent. On the other 
hand, Democritus, the apostle of materialism, had 
declared that all the phenomena of motion and life 
followed by natural necessity, when once immutable 

"Hylozoism has left its mark on language. Take the term "body." 
Both in Greek and in English it is applied, not only to animate things, the 
organisms of the biologist, but quite as freely to such as are inanimate. 
In the latter signification it is firmly established as a scientific term. 
Thus Newton's laws of motion are enunciated of "bodies," and astrono- 
mers talk of the heavenly " bodies." 



20 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

atoms, devoid alike of reason, consciousness, sense, 
and instinct, were conceived as moving, colliding, 
and combining in infinite space. Thus Democritus 
put an end to hylozoism without resorting to tran- 
scendence. When compared with the theory either 
of Democritus or of Aristotle cosmic pantheism ex- 
hibits a retrograde tendency. Conceptions which 
it had been the business of philosophers to separate 
are again confused and the world interpreted on the 
analogy of the individual organism, or, more pre- 
cisely, of a rational human being. This analogy 
may be traced back to Thales, if his apothegm, 
"All things are full of gods," is rightly interpreted 
by Aristotle to imply a belief in a world-soul. 1 
Anaximenes, a later Milesian philosopher, is much 
more explicit. "Even as our soul, which is air," 
says Anaximenes, "holds us together, so breath and 
air encompass the whole universe." 2 As man in- 
hales from outside the breath which constitutes his 
soul, so the world, a similar living, breathing whole, 
respires into the sea of air which Anaximenes con- 
ceived to surround and support it. Some such proc- 
ess of cosmical respiration into the circumambient 
infinite was also a Pythagorean tenet. Pythagorean, 
too, in origin is the conception of the world-soul in 
Plato's Timceus, endowed with motion and intelli- 
gence, the sole cause in virtue of which the body of 
the universe, and therefore the universe as a whole, 
possesses life and motion. There is, then, ample 
evidence that the Greeks were familiar with concep- 
tions of which pantheism would be the natural out- 
growth and the names of Heraclitus, Xenophanes, 
and Parmenides suffice to prove that pantheism 

Aristotle, De Anima, I, 5, 411, a. 8. 

2 Fragment 2, Diels 2 (Fragmente der Vorsokraliker, ed. 2). 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 21 

of some sort, though distinct from Stoic pantheism, 
did arise on Greek soil. On the other hand, it has 
been conjectured that Zeno's Semitic origin is the 
clue to this tenet of his system. Undoubtedly, there 
are many passages in the Old Testament ascribing 
the operations of nature directly to God, which favour 
the notion of divine immanence and omnipresence. 
Any one who reads certain of the Psalms * or the 
finale of the Book of Job, 2 or certain passages in the 
second Isaiah, 3 can hardly escape this conclusion. 
"Whither," says the Psalmist, "shall I go from 
thy spirit ? Or whither shall I flee from thy pres- 
ence ? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; 
if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there; 
if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the 
uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand 
lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I 
say, Surely the darkness shall overwhelm me, and 
the light about me shall be night, even the darkness 
hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the 
day: the darkness and the light are both alike to 
thee." 4 Further, the whole series of events in the 
world of nature, organic and inorganic, all celestial 
phenomena, all atmospheric conditions, all vital 
processes, so far as known to these Hebrew writers, 
are attributed to the immediate agency of God. 
That very order and regularity which Democritus 
and Epicurus found incompatible with divine inter- 
ference in the world the Hebrew writers adduce 
as irrefragable testimony that God is manifest 
in all His works. "He appointed the moon for 
seasons: the sun knoweth his going down." 5 And 

1 E. g., Pss. 104, 107, 139. 2 Especially chapters 36 to 41. 

3 E. g., c. 45. From later Jewish writings may be cited Ecclesiasticus, 
c. 43. *Ps. 139, 7-12. 6 Ps. 104, 19. 



22 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

again, "He saith to the snow, Fall thou on the earth; 
likewise to the shower of rain." x So far, therefore, as 
the unity and immanence of God are concerned, the 
conjecture appears very plausible. Again, the ex- 
clusion of wickedness and sin from divine agency is 
as conspicuous in the writings of the Hebrew proph- 
ets as in the hymn of Cleanthes. From this last 
point of agreement, however, no cogent inference 
can be drawn, in view of Plato's equally emphatic 
pronouncement that God is the author of good, of 
good alone and never of evil. 2 But however great 
the similarity, however strong the case for Semitic 
elements in Stoicism, it would be in vain to seek any 
Biblical parallel for the final step to monism. Man 
and his Maker, God and the world are everywhere 
kept distinct, even in the analogy of the potter and 
the clay. 3 Jahveh is no Brahma, consubstantial 
with all that is. On the whole, then, it seems more 
reasonable to attribute this retrograde step by which 
the hylozoism of the Ionians was revived in an al- 
tered form to purely Greek influences. 

Contemporary Greek thought was not more in- 
clined to tolerate the idealism of Plato and Aris- 
totle than the mechanism and atomism of Democ- 
ritus. The Cynics, under whom Zeno studied, 
were nominalists and denied the separate existence 
of any reality corresponding to a general notion, 
such as the Platonists found in the ideas. The 
school of Zeno was not nominalist, but conceptualist, 
and expressly affirmed that the Platonic ideas were 
notions in our minds, in modern phrase, universals. 
Even among Aristotle's own immediate followers 
the conception of a transcendent, immaterial deity 
was surrounded with difficulties, and it is not sur- 

1 Job, c. 37, v. 6. 2 Republic II, 379 C. 3 Isaiah, c. 45, v. 9. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 23 

prising that Strato of Lampsacus, who succeeded 
to the headship of the school on the death of Theo- 
phrastus (circa 288 B. C.) dropped this tenet. He 
saw no need for an external supernatural cause 
and renounced the idea of God as a Being separate 
and distinct from the world as a whole. For him, 
as for Aristotle, nature is impersonal, a necessary 
force, operating without consciousness or reflection. 
The favourite argument with all the later schools 
ran as follows. Whatever exists must act and be 
acted upon. Action implies contact and therefore 
body, since only corporeal things can touch and be 
touched. From this it follows that such corporeal 
things or bodies alone have real existence and every- 
thing incorporeal is non-existent. The argument is 
worthless, action and passivity being strictly limited 
to the kind of action and the kind of passivity occur- 
ring between bodies in contact, but it is useful as 
determining for us more precisely what is meant by 
the terms existence, body, and causation. Body 
is defined as that which is capable of extension in 
three dimensions. Such bodies exist: our own 
bodies, external things. This mode of existence is 
given and it is the only mode which the Stoics recog- 
nised. Body is that which acts and is acted upon, 
such interaction being a special case of causation. 
By cause the Stoics always mean efficient cause, 
which implies the communication of motion from 
one body to another. All bodies can be moved and 
modified. For all that is or happens there is an 
immediate cause or antecedent, and as "cause'* 
means "cause of motion," and only body can act upon 
body, it follows that this antecedent cause is itself as 
truly corporeal as the body upon which it acts. 

Such a conception of the world as made up 



24 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

of particular bodies acting and reacting upon each 
other might suffice for Epicurus, but it is only the 
husk of the Stoic doctrine, unless to activity we add 
soul, life, and mind. Let us see where and how the 
two materialistic systems differ. To Epicurus the 
atoms are unchangeable, both quantitatively and 
qualitatively. They never waste away, they never 
pass from one state to another. They always 
remain perfectly inelastic solids. They move ever- 
lastingly with the same ceaseless motion and the 
same uniform velocity. Epicurus was not aware that 
he had here combined incompatible attributes. 
The Stoic primary matter, on the contrary, though 
quantitatively constant, indestructible, incapable of 
increase or diminution, is not qualitatively constant, 
but capable of transformation. It becomes by turns 
all the four elements. The difference between these 
states of the primary substance depends upon the 
greater or less degree of tension. Matter being 
infinitely divisible, in whatever state it is, whether 
solid, liquid, or gaseous, it must be in virtue of its 
own inherent force that it possesses any continuity 
or coherence whatsoever. In a rarefied condition 
the exceedingly fine particles of air and fire are sub- 
jected to the greatest strain. In earth and water 
continuity and coherence are attained by the exertion 
of less force: in other words, the tension of the primary 
substance is slackened. The same variety of tension 
is presented when inorganic substances are compared 
with organic. In the vital principle of animals or 
the principle of growth in plants, technically known 
as "nature," primary matter exhibits a degree of 
tension far greater than is necessary to give coherence 
and numerical identity to stones or metals. Again, 
to the Stoics the sum of being, the totality of particu- 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 25 

lar bodies is a whole and a unity which is living and 
conscious, while the atoms of Epicurus are a mere 
aggregate without unity, an infinite aggregate, but 
no true whole and devoid of life, which belongs only 
to particular things. This view of the world, how- 
ever, as an infinite aggregate the Stoics rejected as 
unsatisfactory and fell back upon the alternative 
conception of the universe as a living whole or, in 
modern phrase, a single organism. If, again, the 
world is a living being, like other living beings, it has 
a soul and we may distinguish the rational world- 
soul from the world itself, as we distinguish the 
human soul from the man himself. All particu- 
lar things within the world must be its parts and 
members or, more precisely, particular determina- 
tions of its one substance, which is in eternal activity. 
The determination of the particular by the universe 
and of the part by the whole was a fundamental 
doctrine of the Stoics. The single substance is at 
once both force and matter; or rather, though we 
can distinguish in it that which acts and that which 
is acted upon, there is ultimately no difference 
between these two phases or aspects of the one 
same substance. It alone conditions and deter- 
mines all particular things and processes and, ac- 
cording to its variable relations to particulars, it 
may be variously described. The divine Word or 
Reason (Logos) is the power to produce and create, 
to mould and form particulars, present in each 
thing as its own germinal reason, z. <?., as its formative 
force or vital principle. But, since all organic proc- 
esses fulfil some purpose and have a rational end, 
this same universal Reason must be regarded as an 
overruling Providence in relation to all particular 
occurrences. The course of the world, then, is a 



26 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

rational order, an ordinance by which all individuals 
should be guided in the development of their activity. 
But this all-determining ordinance is likewise all- 
compelling power, and in the unalterable succession 
of causes and effects every event is necessary and 
predestined. The universe would cease to fulfil 
its purpose as a coherent whole, if any event took 
place without an antecedent cause. There is no 
such thing as chance: what appears to happen 
through chance really happens from a cause which 
we cannot discern. The Divine Providence extends 
even to the smallest details of life; there are no ex- 
ceptions to the working of natural necessity. This 
assumption had first been made by Leucippus and 
Democritus, but the Stoics were the only school that 
carried out the thought in all its completeness, and 
with them the natural necessity of every event fol- 
lows, not from the motions of single parts, the sepa- 
rate atoms, but from the living activity of the whole. 
Thus God, Nature, Reason, World-Soul, Germinal 
Reason, Law, Providence, Necessity, Destiny are 
but expressions of the different relations in which the 
one universe, the sum and whole of existence, stands 
to particular things and events within it. 

We have said above that the universal sub- 
stance is at once both force and matter, and the 
statement seems on the whole to offer the best 
solution of certain difficulties inherent in the sys- 
tem. At the same time it must be conceded that 
while this is the logical consequence of the pantheistic 
spirit of Stoicism, it is at first sight at variance with 
the letter of its teaching. The orthodox Stoic ac- 
count of nature starts with the recognition of two 
principles, the one active, the other passive: in other 
words, the one is God, the other is matter devoid of 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 27 

quality. If this were an absolute distinction, the 
account given above would be erroneous. It is 
worth while, then, to inquire within what limits the 
assumption of two principles is legitimate and how 
these two are related to each other. 

"We Stoics, as you know/' says Seneca, "distin- 
guish in nature (in rerum naturd) cause and matter 
as conditions for all becoming. Matter is inert, in- 
different to all determinations, and will remain in a 
state of rest unless it be moved. Cause or reason 
shapes matter and turns it at will in any direction, 
producing out of matter a variety of objects. In 
other words, that out of which all things are made 
must be distinct from that by which all things are 
made and this is what is meant by matter and 
cause." * Seneca, be it observed, is speaking of the 
world as we know it, in which particular things are 
already formed or in process of formation and the 
active causal principle, force, inseparable from the 
passive principle, matter. The latter is conceived 
as indeterminate, but capable of determination, as 
in itself devoid of any quality, yet capable of as- 
suming all qualities. As such, it is the germ or seed 
of all Becoming and of the ordered universe of par- 
ticular things. And this is equally true of the 
contrasted principle, reason or force or God. He 
also is capable of becoming all things and His eternal 
substance contains the seeds of all Becoming. And 
here there is a difficulty. Plutarch objects: "If 
God is identified with matter, why is matter called 
irrational ? If, again, they are ultimately distinct, 
if matter and reason separately exist, God is no 
single supreme principle, but a composite being, 
reason in matter." 2 So far as this difficulty is 

1 Seneca, Epistles, 65, 2. 2 Plutarch, De Communibus Notitiis, 48. 



28 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

inherent and fundamental in every pantheistic sys- 
tem, it does not immediately concern us. Holding 
as we do, that the two principles were ultimately 
identified, if not by Zeno, at any rate by Cleanthes 
and Chrysippus, we should rather be disposed to 
ask another question: What led Zeno to assume two 
distinct principles and why did Chrysippus retain 
the distinction ? The problem admits of no au- 
thoritative solution, from the scantiness of the 
evidence. Indeed, we have not even the explicit 
testimony of any Stoic writer to the ultimate identity 
of the two principles in the mature system. But 
the most probable explanation is based upon histori- 
cal considerations and is in perfect accord with the 
Stoic practice of incorporating and assimilating the 
teaching of other schools. Thus Zeno's two prin- 
ciples were suggested by Aristotle's analysis of the 
particular thing into form and matter. For in- 
corporeal form, however, which he would regard as 
non-existent, Zeno substituted real and corporeal 
cause or force. From the inherence of attributes in 
a substratum he passed to the conception of the uni- 
versal intermingling of corporeal qualities in things. 
This last distinctive tenet calls for further ex- 
planation. Let us endeavour to trace the steps 
by which the Stoics were led to an explicit denial 
that matter is impenetrable, that two bodies cannot 
simultaneously occupy the same place. All that 
really exists is body. But souls exist and qualities 
exist, whence they infer that souls and qualities are 
corporeal things. But the soul pervades the whole 
body, as all the facts of animal life go to prove; and 
when two inorganic substances are mixed, the 
qualities of the one pervade the whole substance of 
the other. Suppose wine poured into water, whether 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 29 

in a bowl or in a pond. The wine will gradually 
extend over and permeate the whole of the water 
until finally it is lost in the mixture in which each 
fluid interpenetrates the other. This is not a case 
of mechanical mixture, as when sand is mixed with 
sugar and each particle of sand, as also each par- 
ticle of sugar, retains its distinctive qualities; for, 
according to the Stoics, every part of the one sub- 
stance is interpenetrated by every part of the other. 
Nor, again, is it analogous to chemical combination, 
in which the constituent elements part with their 
distinctive properties when the new compound is 
formed; for, according to the Stoics, soul and body, 
substance and attribute retain each its own dis- 
tinctive qualities when interpenetrated, as do wine 
and water when intermingled. The clue to this 
astonishing doctrine is found in another Stoic con- 
ception, that the parts or faculties of the soul and the 
attributes of bodies were currents, were matter, but 
highly rarefied matter. At a time when there was 
scarcely any scientific knowledge of matter in the 
fluid, much less in the gaseous state, the fact that heat 
expands and cold contracts gave rise to an ingenious 
theory. The colder a substance, the more it coheres 
and the less the tension of its parts. Increase the 
heat and the tension is increased, until in fluids and 
gases a high degree of tension is reached. Currents 
of air, then, currents of heat, present that condition 
of matter, fine, rare, and subtle, which to the Greek 
mind seemed most akin to the incorporeal because, 
as intangible and invisible, it escaped the observa- 
tion of the senses. When, therefore, the attributes 
and qualities of bodies, or the parts and faculties of 
soul, were declared to be corporeal things, per- 
meating more solid bodies, it was in this guise that 



30 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

they were imagined. Hence a curious inversion of 
Platonic idealism. Plato said that a man is just 
and musical by partaking in the ideas, the objective 
realities, of justice and music: the Stoics said that a 
man was just when he had the material of justice, 
musical when he had the material of music within 
him. While we justly condemn this wild specula- 
tion as crude and baseless, we must remember that 
even in modern science there is a region of unverified 
hypotheses in which speculations on the nature of 
electricity and the properties of ether play their part. 
The statement that the universal substance is 
at once both force and matter, and therefore that 
the distinction between them is only transitory 
and relative, is strongly confirmed by the Stoic cos- 
mogony. In the world as it is we resolve each par- 
ticular thing into form and matter, but let us go 
back to the time before there was a heaven and earth 
and review the work of creation. Here again the 
analogy of the macrocosm and the microcosm is all- 
important. The germination of a plant, the birth 
of an animal implies a seed or ovum, moisture being 
one indispensable condition. So, too, with a world, 
which is evolved, attains maturity, and again perishes 
by a process of orderly sequence stretching over an 
immense period of time. Before the birth of the 
world God alone existed, having absorbed into His 
fiery substance all nature at a general conflagration. 
At this stage the distinction between the soul and the 
body of the universe, between the active principle, 
God, and the passive principle, matter, is merged in 
complete identity. In the words of Chrysippus, "the 
universe is then its own soul and its own controlling 
mind," x and yet at the same time it never ceases to 

1 Plutarch, De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 41. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 31 

be material substance with extraordinary physical 
properties of temperature and tension. The nebular 
theory of modern astronomers requires us to imag- 
ine at some point of time anterior to the formation of 
the solar system a vast mass of gaseous vapour at a 
high temperature. This might serve as a picture of 
the primary substance of the Stoics. The tension 
throughout was enormous. From this ignited condi- 
tion the primary substance passes through the stage 
of vapour or "air" to that of water or moisture. 
Here we pause to remark that the Stoics are follow- 
ing Heraclitus, who reduced the constant transforma- 
tion of the sensible world to a formula, the way 
downward from fire to water and earth and the way 
upward from earth to water and fire. There was 
this difference, however, that to Heraclitus air was 
a transition, not a state, whereas the Stoics, like 
Aristotle, recognised air as one of their four element- 
ary bodies. Later Stoics date the birth of the world 
from the stage when the primary substance is in 
the moist or watery condition. Thus Seneca says: 
"We maintain that it is fire which takes possession of 
the universe and transforms all things into itself. 
This fire dies down gradually, and when it is ex- 
tinguished there is nothing else left in nature but 
moisture. In moisture lies hidden the promise of 
the world that is to be. Thus the universe ends in 
fire and begins from moisture." l The seed, whether 
of vegetable or animal life, is fostered by moisture: the 
seed of the world that is to be is the primary sub- 
stance itself under the aspect of germinal reason. 
In the next stage all the four elements are developed 
out of this moisture. One part is precipitated in 
the form of earth, another remains as water, a third 

1 Seneca, Naturales Qiicestiones, III, 13, 1. 



32 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

part, evaporating, constitutes atmospheric air, and 
air, again, enkindles fire out of itself. These four 
elements not only account for the world of particular 
things, in which they are combined in varying pro- 
portions, but also by their relative positions massed 
round the earth as centre they give the universe its 
spherical form. A belt or sphere of air surrounding 
land and sea is itself surrounded by the spherical 
heaven or ether made of the purest fire and con- 
taining the heavenly bodies. 

The picture of the one universe consisting of these 
concentric spheres dominated imagination from Eu- 
doxus and Aristotle down to Dante and Copernicus. 
It is, then, by no means peculiar to the Stoics. 
They merely followed in the beaten track. The 
science of that day had a huge admixture of unveri- 
fied hypothesis and consequent error. The Stoics 
took over from Plato and Aristotle the outlines, not 
only of astronomy, but also of natural history with 
the stereotyped division of organic life into plants, 
animals, and rational beings. In these departments 
their contributions call for no special notice. The two 
elements, air and fire, situated further from the centre 
of this Stoic universe and higher, if we look upward, 
represent active force, the soul of the world; the 
other two elements, earth and water, play the part 
of passive matter, or the body of the world. Thus 
primal unity is differentiated into force and matter, 
soul and body, as well as into the variety and multi- 
plicity of individual things. As these distinctions, 
however, had their origin in time, so also will time 
put an end to them. The parts undergo a perpetual 
transformation; each individual thing that has come 
into being by the combination of elements ceases to 
be when they separate, and when the present cycle 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 33 

has run its course all matter will be absorbed once 
more into primary substance or deity and the world 
be consumed in a general conflagration. This rest- 
oration of all things becomes again the starting-point 
for a new cycle, in which every phase of the world's 
existence and every particular event is exactly re- 
peated with unfailing regularity. Not many Stoic 
dogmas lend themselves to poetic handling, but the 
idea of a new era, of a fresh start in universal history, 
has sunk deep into the heart of mankind. Some- 
times it is presented as the return of a weary world 
to the happy innocence of a far-distant past, some- 
times as a deliverance from the intolerable evils of 
a worn-out state of society, but always as a con- 
summation devoutly to be wished and heralded with 
eager anticipation. To such hopes and aspirations 
Virgil gave a splendid setting in his Fourth Eclogue. 
Who the particular child was whose birth is there 
foretold is a question which has greatly perplexed 
the learned, 1 but in his glowing picture of the bles- 
sings to follow its advent the poet has skilfully inter- 
woven the old belief in the golden age and the reign 
of Saturn with the Stoic doctrine of a restitution of 
all things. Virgil sings of better, brighter times to 
come, and yet for the realisation of this dream he 
reverts to a primeval past. The age of the heroes 
will in due course return, another Jason will go in 
quest of the golden fleece, another Achilles will start 
for the siege of Troy. The glamour with which the 
poet's imagination invests the new order of things 
tends to conceal the fundamental inconsistency: for, 
if the new is but the repetition of the old, how can 

1 See the recent volume, entitled Virgil's Messianic Eclogue: Three 
Studies, by J. B. Mayor, W. Warde Fowler, R. S. Conway. Also the 
review by H. W. Garrod, in Classical Review, XXII, 149. 



34 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the future be any improvement upon the experience 
of the past ? According to the Stoics, as we have 
seen, there is no advance. Both morally and 
materially and in every exact detail the new is a 
faithful reproduction of the old; whence it inevitably 
follows that all the evil, as well as all the good, is 
everlastingly perpetuated. This consideration comes 
out more prominently in Shelley, whose adaptation of 
the same theme in the final chorus of his Hellas is so 
beautiful that I make no apology for quoting it at 
length : 

The world's great age begins anew, 

The golden years return, 
The earth doth like a snake renew 

Her winter weeds outworn: 
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, 
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains 

From waves serener far; 
A new Peneus rolls his fountains 

Against the morning star. 
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. 

A loftier Argo cleaves the main, 

Fraught with a later prize; 
Another Orpheus sings again, 

And loves, and weeps, and dies. 
A new Ulysses leaves once more 
Calypso for his native shore. 

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy, 

If earth Death's scroll must be! 
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy 

Which dawns upon the free: 
Although a subtler Sphinx renew 
Riddles of death Thebes never knew. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 35 

Another Athens shall arise, 

And to remoter time 
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, 

The splendour of its prime; 
And leave, if nought so bright may live, 
All earth can take or Heaven can give. 

Saturn and Love their long repose 
Shall burst, more bright and good 

Than all who fell, than One who rose, 
Than many unsubdued: 

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, 

But votive tears and symbol flowers. 

Oh, cease! must hate and death return ? 

Cease! must men kill and die? 
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn 

Of bitter prophecy. 
The world is weary of the past, 
Oh, might it die or rest at last! 

Shelley, even in the moment of writing these lines, 
obviously hesitates between two conflicting ideals. 
His ardent vision embraces on the one hand the 
moral regeneration of mankind, whereby the future 
will be better than the past, and on the other hand the 
Stoic idea of a restitution of all things, whereby the 
future becomes a mere repetition of the past and 
must therefore bring with it all the old attendant 
evils. The theory of recurrent cycles in the history 
of the universe is incompatible with the conception 
of unending progress; rather it rests ultimately upon 
that of permanence and fixity, of destiny working by 
the same laws under the same unalterable conditions 
to all eternity, the consummation of a moral order 
which is adapted to secure uninterruptedly the good 
of the whole, but not necessarily that of its several 
parts. 



36 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

The monotony of life, the weary round of human 
existence, has been a favourite theme with moralists 
of every age. In the weighty words of the Preacher; 
"that which is hath been already; and that which is 
to be hath already been : and God seeketh again that 
which is passed away. . . . That which hath been 
is that which shall be; and that which hath been done 
is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing 
under the sun." * But we must be careful not to con- 
fuse the daring speculation sketched above with such 
generalities. Sombre reflections of this kind have, 
for the most part, an ethical tendency; they correct 
the eager anticipation of youth by an appeal to larger 
experience, to a wider, though still limited, observa- 
tion. The doctrine we have just considered is of far- 
reaching cosmical import, transcending all experience. 
How, it may be asked, did this singular conception 
gain such a hold upon the Greeks ? It certainly did 
not originate with the Stoics. A fragment of Eude- 
mus attributes to the Pythagorean school the iden- 
tical doctrine. " If," says that contemporary and pu- 
pil of Aristotle, "we are to believe the Pythagoreans, 
numerically identical conditions will be repeated, and 
I with this little rod in my hand shall some day once 
again be addressing you my class sitting round me 
precisely as you sit now, and everything else in like 
manner will recur precisely as before." 2 But there 
is no reason to father it upon the Pythagorean school. 
More probably it is an inevitable corollary from the 
Heraclitean doctrine of flux — at least for those who 
accept the latter in its entirety. That doctrine, which 

1 Eccles. 3:15; 1:9. 

2 Eudemus apud Simpl. In Phys., 732, 26. This interesting fragment 
(Diels 2 Vors. Fr., p. 277) is taken verbatim, Simplicius informs us, from 
the third book of the Physics of Eudemus, cj. 732, 23 sqq. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 37 

has already engaged our attention, postulates ever- 
lasting change governed by an immutable law of 
change. But, if we look at the conception more 
closely, whether as presented by Heraclitus or the 
Pythagoreans or the Stoics, the ancients, so far as 
we can see, made no attempt to arrive at their con- 
clusion by any logical process. It comes as an orac- 
ular utterance; it would be unkind to call it a mere 
guess. We should be inclined to doubt whether the 
contemporaries of Heraclitus understood the scheme 
of causality in nature as we understand it; most cer- 
tainly they were unacquainted with the mathematical 
notion of probability which a modern exponent of the 
theory has employed in its support. Within the last 
decade a posthumous work of that great but erratic 
genius Friedrich Nietzsche 1 has again revived this 
curious speculation. The doctrine there expounded 
is known as "eternal recurrence," Die ewige Wieder- 
kunft ; and one little passage which contains the gist 
of Nietzsche's conception is here presented in a literal 
translation by my friend, Mr. G. Ainslie Hight. 

"If the world may be conceived as a definite mag- 
nitude of force, and a definite number of force-centres 
— every other conception of it is wanting in definite- 
ness, and therefore useless — it follows that it has to 
go through a calculable number of combinations in 
the great game of chance 2 of its existence. In the 
eternity of time every possible combination would, 
at some time or other, have been reached. More, it 
would be reached an infinite number of times. And 
since between each combination and its next return 
every possible combination will have occurred, and 
since each of these combinations determines the en- 

1 Werke, Bd. XV. Der Wille zur Macht (Leipzig, 1901). 

2 Lit. "game of dice." Heraclitus calls it a child's game of draughts. 



38 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

tire sequence of combinations in that series, we must 
assume a cycle (Kreislauf) of absolutely identical 
series; the world as a cycle which has already re- 
peated itself an infinite number of times and plays 
its game ad infinitum." l Whether this amounts to 
a demonstration and whether we must accept the 
premisses on which the conclusions are based are 
questions for the students and critics of Nietzsche 
to determine. But there can be no reasonable doubt 
of the identity of his conception with that of the 
ancients. That which he set himself to prove had 
been formulated by them long before, and, as the 
fragment of Eudemus shows, in precise terms. Of 
orthodox Stoicism it became a fundamental tenet, 
defended, tooth and nail, against the rival Peripatetic 
doctrine that the existing order of things as we know 
it now is eternal. None but heterodox Stoics like 
Panaetius ever expressed doubts on this head or were 
seduced into accepting Aristotle's alternative hy- 
pothesis. 

Such then is the sketch which Stoicism affords of 
the world's history. If all difficulties are not cleared 
up, at any rate we understand from it why the lead- 
ing terms, such as God, nature, matter, are applied 
in what appears to be an inconsistent manner. God 
is sometimes regarded as a spiritual power working 
upon and in the material universe, and similarly 
matter sometimes assumes an independent place 
beside Him. Such language is appropriate to the 
world already constituted, in which the active and 
passive principles are set over against each other, 

1 Der Wille zur Macht, Bk. IV, chap, i, § 384, p. 410. The entire 
exposition includes § 375— § 385. It is as sober and logical as anything 
ever written by the author. The editor states in the preface (pp. xviii-xix) 
that Nietzsche intended to treat the idea more fully in poetical form. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 39 

Perhaps this is the more habitual attitude of Seneca, 
Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, our fullest authori- 
ties, in ethical discussions or wherever Providence 
and the moral order of the world come up for treat- 
ment. At other times God is spoken of as embracing 
in Himself the totality of being, no longer identified 
with the spiritual part of the world, but with the 
world itself, embracing soul and body alike. From 
this point of view the question, "What is God?" 
is answered by the question, "What is God not?" 
or by Lucan's line: "All that thou seest, yea, all 
that moves is God." 1 

From the one point of view physics passes over 
into natural theology. Socrates had discoursed on 
the wisdom and goodness of the gods and their 
special care of men. Aristotle was the first to 
demonstrate from his own premisses the being and 
attributes of the deity whom he conceived as the 
first cause and immobile mover of the physical 
universe. The Stoics approached the subject with 
a far stronger conviction of its importance and a 
determination to carry to its legitimate consequences 
the teleological conception of nature, which to a 
greater or less extent was inherited by all the schools 
deriving from Socrates. They undertook, not only to 
prove that gods exist, but also to explain their nature. 
But these inquiries were preliminary to their main 
thesis that the universe and all its parts are ordered 
and administered by divine Providence and that 
all events subserve the highest end, the welfare and 
advantage of rational beings. In taking up this 
position they found themselves in direct hostility to 

1 Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quodcunque movetur, Pharsalia IX, 
580. Cf. prope est a te Deus, tecum est, intus est, Seneca, Epist. Mor. 
41, 1. Also Acts 0} the Apostles, XVII, 27, I Cor. Ill, 16, 17. 



40 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Epicurus, who denied the interference of the gods 
in the world of nature, and not less at variance with 
the Peripatetics, who attributed the adaptation of 
means to ends throughout the natural world to the 
unconscious agency of an immanent power, without 
explaining the relation in which this unconscious 
power, nature, stood to the deity./ To the popular 
religion the Stoics were in reality* as much opposed 
as Aristotle or Epicurus. They denounced what 
they called superstition, myths unworthy or immoral, 
trivial or mischievous rites. Zeno declared images, 
shrines, temples, sacrifices, prayers, and worship to 
be of no avail. The best and holiest worship is to 
reverence the gods with a mind and voice sincere 
and free from the stain of guilt. A really acceptable 
prayer can only come from a virtuous and devout 
mind. At the same time it was their task to cherish 
and foster all the elements of the orthodox faith 
which could be pressed into the service of their sys- 
tem. They took religion under their protection and 
felt at liberty to defend and uphold the truth in 
polytheism. The universe is God, the one supreme 
Being, who may be addressed as Zeus. But, further, 
divinity must be ascribed to his manifestations, the 
heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars, the forces 
of nature, the blessings and advantages of life, such 
as corn and wine, the qualities which tend to the 
welfare of the individual and society — even to 
deified men. When the world was thus peopled 
with divine agents, it was necessary to turn to ac- 
count myth and legend, especially the poems of 
Homer and Hesiod, by extracting from them or read- 
ing into them physical explanations and moral truths. 
Thus some moral significance was discovered in 
almost every incident in the career of the two favour- 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 41 

ite heroes, Hercules and Ulysses. But the popular 
religion had a strong hold on men's minds by means 
of divination and oracles. To these the Stoics 
lent the sanction of their system. But how, we may 
ask, could this be reconciled with the doctrine 
of natural necessity by which every event in the 
physical universe has its fixed and predetermining 
cause ? The reconciliation was effected by the re- 
course to another doctrine of the mutual coherence 
and interconnection between all the parts in the 
whole universe. Omens and portents are thus 
produced in sympathy with those events of which 
they are precursors and indications, so that by natural 
aptitude or acquired art the connection between 
them may be empirically observed and noted. If 
it were objected that divination was superfluous since 
every event was unalterably fixed, the reply was that 
both divination and our behaviour under the warn- 
ings thus afforded were included in the chain of 
causation. 

In establishing the thesis that there is a moral 
government of the world, the Stoics started from 
all those phenomena which, in the judgment of 
Socrates and the Socratics, especially Plato and 
Aristotle, implied an intelligent adaptation of means 
to ends. That there is an abundance of such phe- 
nomena was a matter of general agreement, and on 
this common ground Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno were 
united in opposition to Epicurus and Carneades. 
The teleological conceptions of the Stoics often sank 
to a low level, and they inferred purpose from very 
questionable premisses of supposed utility resulting 
to mankind at large or to a few favoured individuals. 
On the whole, however, their use of the physico- 
theological argument, or argument from design, 



42 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

did not greatly differ from that of their successors 
on the same lines. Even Hume and Mill attributed 
to it a certain degree of probability, and until Darwin 
revolutionised biological science it was not seriously 
shaken. The Stoics, however, were not content 
with the conclusion to which Hume gave a halting 
assent, that on the balance of probabilities the 
world as we know it does exhibit the work of intelli- 
gence. They made the further assumption, which 
Hume stoutly resisted, that purpose in nature is 
working for the benefit of rational beings, i. e., of 
gods and men, to whose welfare that of the rest of 
particular beings is subordinated. They held that 
in this world, the common habitation of all living 
things, everything had been ordained by perfect 
reason for the general good; everything, therefore, 
happens in the best way possible. This conclusion 
was directly challenged as conflicting with actual 
facts. It is at first sight a glaring contradiction 
of the admitted existence of evil in the world. 
Unlike their philosophic predecessors, Zeno and 
Chrysippus could not attribute this evil to any 
power or agency in the world external to the godhead ; 
they could not take refuge in chance or spontaneity 
or necessity or intractable matter. In handling 
this question they displayed the utmost acumen, and 
it may be doubted whether any subsequent attempt 
to justify the ways of God to man will ever be more 
successful than theirs. With physical evils, such 
as calamity, disease, and pain, their task was com- 
paratively easy, for these to them are not evils in 
themselves; it is we who by our assent to a false 
opinion make them so. In themselves they are 
things indifferent which can be put to a right or a 
wrong use and so turned to a blessing or a curse. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 43 

Moreover, it was easy to show that advantages to 
mankind at large resulted from some of them. Thus 
disease and the like had a moral effect, partly as 
deterrent or reformatory punishments, partly as a 
stimulus for the exercise of our powers. The 
scourge of cholera may lead to the destruction of 
slums and to improved sanitation; the sleeping- 
sickness may result in fresh discoveries of medical 
science. But, supposing all this to be granted, what 
of folly, sin, and wickedness, whose existence in the 
world no Stoic could deny when he divided all mankind 
by a sharp line into wise and fools, sheep and goats ? 
The first and weightiest reply to this objection 
is drawn from the metaphysical distinction between 
the whole and the parts. Epicurus inquired 
whether it was because he could not or because 
he would not that God refrained from banishing 
evil from the world. The Stoic reply is in effect 
that of the Hebrew prophet: God's thoughts are 
not our thoughts, neither are our ways His ways. 
He must by the necessity of His nature allow evil 
and baseness among men. The Stoic emperor fre- 
quently uses this argument when exhorting himself 
to take a more tolerant and charitable view of his 
fellow-men. This leads to the further inquiry: why 
must evil be tolerated in the universe ? The answer 
is that good and evil are relative. Destroy the one 
and you also destroy the other. Only by opposition 
to evil is good brought about: were there no sin or 
folly, there would be no virtue and wisdom. Lastly, 
it was not difficult to follow up this train of thought 
by pointing to actual instances in which good had 
resulted from evil and deducing the conclusion that 
God can overrule even evil and make it subservient 
to His own ends. 



44 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

The reader must not expect to find these sep- 
arate lines of argument clearly distinguished in the 
extant fragments of Chrysippus or in the writings of 
the later Stoics. In the passages to which we now 
draw his attention stress is laid first on one and then 
on another of the considerations above adduced. 
In all the extracts, however, the general intention is 
to show why evil, whether physical imperfection or 
moral defect, is not only consonant with, but actu- 
ally indispensable to, the scheme of a rational uni- 
verse under providential government {cur mala fiant, 
cum sit providentid). To begin with Chrysippus, 
whose doctrine is summed up in the pithy sentence, 
"Vice cannot be removed, nor is it well that it should 
be removed." x As Gellius informs us, 2 Chrysippus 
in his fourth book on Providence dealt with the ob- 
jection that if the world had been made and was now 
governed in the interests of men, there would have 
been no evils in it, and his answer was as follows: 
"It is the height of absurdity to suppose that goods 
could have existed without evils. For, since goods 
are the contraries of evils, both must of necessity 
coexist in mutual opposition; indeed, of any pair of 
contraries neither can exist without the other. How 
could justice be known apart from injustice ? What 
is justice, in fact, but the negation of injustice ? 
Or how could courage be understood except by its 
opposition to cowardice ? Or temperance apart 
from intemperance ? Or wisdom apart from folly ? 
Nay, why do not these foolish people go on to wish 
for truth to exist apart from falsehood ? Goods 
and evils, good fortune and evil fortune, pain and 

'Plutarch, De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 1051 B: Von Arnim, Stoic. 
Vet. Fragm., No. 1182. 

2 Nodes Attica, VII, 1; Von Arnim, No. 1169. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 45 

pleasure are just as inseparable from one another 
as are truth and falsehood. For these are pairs, 
in which each member is bound to the other with 
opposing fronts, in Plato's phrase: if you take away 
the one, you take away both." 

In the same book Chrysippus went on to the 
particular inquiry whether disease is natural to 
man. He allows that it was not the primary 
purpose of the Creator to create men subject to 
disease. But in the production of much that was 
serviceable and advantageous to mankind he could 
not prevent the intrusion of kindred disadvantages 
closely bound up with the advantages, and the 
former stand to the latter as their natural con- 
comitants. For instance, in the construction of 
the human body considerations of reason and utility 
required the head to be fashioned of very small 
and thin bones. But this superior utility involved 
a disadvantage, viz., that a head so constructed 
is easily broken and exposed to risk from ever so 
slight a blow. Hence disease and trouble date their 
birth from the birth of health. Similarly it is na- 
ture's design to produce virtue among mankind, 
and vice sprang up in the same soil because vices are 
related to the virtues as their contraries. 1 In the 
second book on the gods, as we learn from Plutarch, 2 
he laid down that discomforts, by which are meant 
material evils, befall the good, not for punishment, 
as in the case of the wicked, but by a different dis- 
pensation as happens in states, and this is further 
explained by the statement that evils are distributed 
according to the rational will of Zeus, either for 
punishment or by some other dispensation which 

1 Nodes Attica, VII, i § 7 sqq.; Von Arnim, No. 1169. 

2 De Stoic. Repug., 1050 E; Von Arnim, No. 1176. 



46 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

has its importance to the universe at large. Again, 
in a perfect universe there is nothing calling for 
censure or blame; and yet Plutarch complains * 
that Chrysippus was sometimes disposed to attribute 
the external misfortunes of good men to causes which 
imply a reflection on the course of Providence, as 
when he speculates whether such misfortunes are 
due to oversight, on the analogy of the trifling acci- 
dents due to neglect in a large household otherwise 
well administered, or to the mismanagement of 
evil spirits to whom has been intrusted a share in 
the government of the universe. So in another con- 
text he says: "Vice is determined in relation to the 
rest of the accidents. For it also in some sort comes 
into being according to the law of nature and is not, 
so to say, wholly unprofitable to the universe at 
large; for without it there would be no goodness." 2 
And again, "As comedies have in them ludicrous 
verses which, though bad in themselves, neverthe- 
less lend a certain grace to the whole play, so, while 
in and for itself vice is to be blamed, it is not without 
its utility for the rest." 3 

Marcus Aurelius turns again and again to the 
problem of evil. In the first of the following pas- 
sages he is obviously alluding to the last citation 
from Chrysippus. 

"One and all we work toward one consumma- 
tion; some knowingly and intelligently, others un- 
consciously; even as Heraclitus, was it not, said of 
those who sleep that they too are at work, fellow- 
workers in the conduct of the universe. One works 
in one way, another in another; and not least he who 
finds fault and who tries to resist and undo what is 

1 De Stoic. Repug., 1051 C; Von Arnim, No. 1178. 

3 Plutarch, De Communibus Notitiis, 1065 B. 3 lb., 1065 D. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 47 

done. Even of such the world has need. It re- 
mains then to make sure in which ranks you range 
yourself; he who disposes all things will in any case 
make good use of you, and will receive you into the 
number of his fellow-workers and auxiliaries. Only 
do not you play foil to the rest like the coarse jest 
in the comedy, to use the figure of Chrysippus." * 

"Be the world atoms or be it nature's growth, 
stand assured — first, that I am a part of the whole, 
at nature's disposition; secondly, that I am related 
to all the parts of like kind with myself. First, then, 
inasmuch as I am a part, I shall not be discontented 
with any lot assigned to me from the whole; for 
nothing is hurtful to the part which is good for the 
whole. The whole contains nothing which is not 
for its own good; this is true of all nature's growths, 
with this addition in the case of the world-nature, 
that there is no external cause compelling it to gener- 
ate anything hurtful to itself. Thus in the thought 
that I am a part of such a whole, I shall be content 
with all that comes to pass. And, secondly, in so 
far as I own my relation to the parts of like kind with 
myself, I shall do nothing for self-seeking, but shall 
feel concern for all such parts, directing every en- 
deavour toward the common good, and diverting it 
from the contrary. So long as I pursue this course, 
life must perforce flow smooth, smooth as the ideal 
life of one ever occupied in the well-being of his fellow- 
citizens, and contented to accept whatever the city 
assigns to him." 2 

"He gives me the impression of wrong-doing, but 
after all how do I know whether it is wrong ? or 
supposing it was, that he did not upbraid himself for 
it — like the mourner defacing his own visage ? He 

1 Marcus Aurelius To Himself, VI, 42. 2 lb. X, 6. 



48 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

who would not have the vile do wrong is like one who 
would not have the fig-tree bear juice in her figs, or 
infants scream, or the horse neigh, or anything else 
that is in the order of things. What else can result, 
his bent being what it is ? If it aggrieves you, 
amend it." 1 

"That from such and such causes given effects 
result is inevitable; he who would not have it so 
would have the fig-tree yield no juice. Fret not. 
Remember, too, that in a little you and he will both 
be dead; soon not even your names will survive." 2 

"Think of being shocked at the fig-tree bearing 
figs! you have just as little right, remember, to be 
shocked at the world bearing the produce proper 
to it. Shame on the physician or the pilot who is 
shocked at a case of fever or a contrary wind!" 3 

"Evil-doing does not hurt the universe at large; 
evil to one part does not hurt another. It is hurtful 
to the evil-doer only, and release from it is within 
his reach as soon as he so wills." 4 

"To my moral will my neighbour's will is as com- 
pletely unrelated as his breath is or his flesh. Be 
we ever so much made for one another, our inner 
selves have each their own sovereign rights: other- 
wise my neighbour's evil might become my evil, 
which is not God's good pleasure, lest another have 
power to undo me." 5 

"When some piece of shamelessness offends you, 
ask yourself, Can the world go on without shameless 
people? Certainly not! Then do not ask for the 
impossible. Here, you see, is one of the shameless, 
whom the world cannot get on without. Similarly, 
in any case of foul play or breach of faith or any other 

1 Marcus Aurelius To Himself, XII, 16. 2 lb., IV, 6. 

3 lb., VIII, 15. 'lb., VIII, 55. 5 Ib., VIII, 56. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 49 

wrong fall back on the same thought. When once 
you remember that the genus cannot be abolished you 
will be more charitable to the individual. Another 
helpful plan is at once to realise what virtue nature 
has given to man to cope with the wrong. For 
she provides antidotes, such as gentleness to cope 
with the graceless, and other salves for other irri- 
tants. You can always try to convert the misguided; 
for indeed every wrong-doer is really misguided and 
missing his proper mark. Besides, what harm has 
he done to you ? For look — none of the objects of your 
ire has done anything that can inflict injury upon 
your understanding; yet there, and there only, can 
evil or hurt to you find realisation! What is there 
wrong, pray, or shocking in the clown acting the 
clown ? See that the fault does not lie rather at 
your own door for not expecting him to go wrong 
thus. Reason supplied you with faculties enabling 
you to expect that he would go wrong thus; you for- 
got, and then are surprised at his having done so. 
When you complain of some breach of faith or grati- 
tude, take heed first and foremost to yourself. 
Obviously the fault lies with yourself, if you had 
faith that a man of that disposition would keep 
faith, or if in doing a kindness you did not do it upon 
principle, nor upon the assumption that the kind act 
was to be its own reward. What more do you want 
in return for a service done ? Is it not enough to 
have acted up to nature without asking wages for 
it?" 1 

Hence the attitude of resignation to and acqui- 
escence in the course of events so characteristic of 
Marcus Aurelius beyond all other Stoics. "All that 
befalls the individual is for the good of the whole. 

1 Marcus Aurelius To Himself, IX, 42. 



50 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

That might suffice. But, looking closer, you will 
perceive the general rule, that what is good for one 
man is good for others, too. But 'good' or 'in- 
terest' must be regarded as wider in range than 
things indifferent." * 

"We talk of doctors' orders and say: iEsculapius 
has prescribed him horse exercise, or cold baths, or 
walking barefoot. It is the same with nature's 
orders, when she prescribes disease, mutilation, 
amputation, or some other form of disablement. 
Just as doctors' orders mean such and such treat- 
ment, ordered as specific for such and such state of 
health, so every individual has circumstances or- 
dered for him specifically in the way of destiny. 
Circumstances may be said to fit our case, just as 
masons talk of fitting squared stones in bastions or 
pyramids, when they adjust them so as to complete 
a given whole. The adjustment is a perfect fit. 
Just as the universe is the full sum of all the con- 
stituent parts, so is destiny the cause and sum of all 
existent causes. The most unphilosophical recog- 
nise it in such phrases as ' So it came to pass for 
him.' So and so then was brought to pass, was ' or- 
dered ' for the man. Let us accept such orders as 
we do the orders of our iEsculapius. They are 
rough oftentimes, yet we welcome them in hope of 
health. Try to think of the execution and con- 
summation of nature's good pleasure as you do of 
bodily good health. Welcome all that comes, per- 
verse though it may seem, for it leads you to the goal, 
the health of the world-order, the welfare and well- 
being of Zeus. He would not bring this on the 
individual were it not for the good of the whole. 
Each change and chance that nature brings is in 

1 Marcus Aurelius To Himself, VI, 45. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 51 

correspondence with that which exists by her disposal. 
On two grounds, then, you should accept with ac- 
quiescence whatever befalls — first, because it hap- 
pened to you, was ordered for you, affected you as 
part of the web issuing from the primal causation; 
secondly, because that which comes upon the indi- 
vidual contributes to the welfare, the consummation, 
yea, and the survival, of the power which disposes 
all things. As with the parts so is it with the causes; 
you cannot sever any fragment of the connected 
unity without mutilating the perfection of the whole. 
In every act of discontent, you inflict, so far as in 
you lies, such severance and, so to say, undoing." 1 

"Either all things spring from a single source 
possessed of mind, and combine and fit together as 
for a single body, and in that case the part has no 
right to quarrel with the good of the whole : or else, 
it is a concourse of atoms, a welter ending in disper- 
sion. Why, then, perturb yourself?" 2 

"When offended at a fault in some one else, 
divert your thoughts to the reflection: What is the 
parallel fault in me ? Is it attachment to money ? 
or pleasure ? or reputation ? as the case may be. 
Dwelling on this, anger forgets itself and makes way 
for the thought — 'He cannot help himself — what 
else can he do ?' If it is not so, enable him, if you 
can, to help himself." 3 

"Claim your right to every word or action that 
accords with nature. Do not be distracted by the 
consequent criticism or talk, but, if a thing is good 
to be done or said, do not disclaim your proper right. 
Other men's minds are their own affair; they follow 
their own impulse: do not you heed them, but keep 
the straight course, following your own nature and 

1 Marcus Aurelius To Himself, V, 8. 2 lb., IX, 39. 3 lb., X, 30, 



52 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the nature of the universe, and the way of both is 



» i 



one. 

"Tenth and lastly — a gift, so please you, from 
Apollo, leader of the Choir. Not to expect the 
worthless to do wrong is idiocy; it is asking an im- 
possibility. To allow them to wrong others, and to 
claim exemption for yourself, is graceless and ty- 
rannical." 2 

"Always be clear whose approbation it is you 
wish to secure and what their inner principles are. 
Then you will not find fault with unintended blun- 
ders; neither will you need credentials from them, 
when you look into the well-springs of their views 
and impulses." 3 

" 'No soul,' says the philosopher, 4 'wilfully misses 
truth'; no, nor justice either, nor wisdom, nor char- 
ity, nor any other excellence. It is essential to re- 
member this continually; it will make you gentler 
with every one." 5 

"The immortal gods do not lose patience at having 
to bear age after age with the froward generations 
of men, but still show for them all manner of con- 
cern. Shall you, whose end is in a moment, lose 
heart ? — you, who are one of the froward ? " 8 

"How is it that the gods, who ordered all things 
well and lovingly, overlooked this one thing: that 
some men, elect in virtue, having kept close cove- 
nant with the divine, and enjoyed intimate com- 
munion therewith by holy acts and sacred minis- 
tries, should not, when once dead, renew their being, 
but be utterly extinguished ? If it indeed be so, be 
sure, had it been better otherwise, the gods would 

1 Marcus Aurelius To Himself, V, 3. 2 lb., XI, 18, sub finem. 

3 lb., VII, 62. 4 Plato, as twice quoted by Epictetus, I, 28, 2 and 22. 
6 Marcus Aurelius, VII, 63. 6 lb., VII, 70. 



EARLIER STOICS AND PANTHEISM 53 

have had it so. Were it right it would be likewise 
possible; were it according to nature, nature would 
have brought it to pass. From its not being so, if 
as a fact it is not so, be assured it ought not so to be. 
Do you not see that in hazarding such questions you 
arraign the justice of God ? Nay, we could not thus 
reason with the gods but for their perfectness and 
justice. And from this it follows that they would 
never have allowed any unjust or unreasonable neg- 
lect of parts of the great order." * 

1 Marcus Aurilius To Himself, XII, 5. 



CHAPTER II 

STOIC PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 

In considering the body of Stoic doctrine due 
weight must be attached to the pantheistic spirit 
which, as we have seen, has its outcome in the view 
of the universe as a rational whole. In the last re- 
sort purely physical inquiries and ethical general- 
isations tend to become merged in the problems 
of natural theology. But in accordance with the 
needs and ideas of the time the Stoics regarded 
philosophy itself in the first instance as a practical 
concern. If wisdom be the science of things human 
and divine, philosophy or the pursuit of wisdom 
should be defined as consisting in the exercise of a 
serviceable art. The pre-eminently serviceable art is 
the art of living. We study philosophy in order to 
live and act. Conduct is the one thing of supreme im- 
portance. In a well-known passage of the Ethics, 
Aristotle had exalted speculative over practical activ- 
ity. Chrysippus objected that the life of the student, 
when closely examined, turns out to be but one 
more variety of hedonism. It is true, the student 
leads a refined and leisurely existence, but it is a 
life of pleasure all the same. The question always 
recurs: To what use do we put our knowledge? 
Right conduct or moral excellence is, after all, the end, 
and, in order to attain it, training and discipline are 
needed even more than correct views. So complete 
is the fusion of theory and practice with the Stoics 

54 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 55 

that logic, physics, and ethics, the three current 
divisions of philosophy, are actually held to be the 
three most comprehensive and universal virtues. 
Each is a manifestation of wisdom, and wisdom is 
only properly attained when it is realised in action 
and life. We must exercise ourselves to form 
right judgments and to choose proper objects of en- 
deavour. In spite of this threefold division of philos- 
ophy, wisdom is at all times and under all conditions 
essentially one. The Stoics were fond of using illus- 
trations which well bring out this unity. They com- 
pared philosophy to an animal organism, logic being 
the bones and sinews, ethics the flesh, physics the 
soul. Or it may be likened to an egg, of which logic 
is the shell, ethics, the white, and physics the yolk. 
Or, again, to a fertile field, or fruitful garden, logic 
being the wall or fence, ethics the fruit or produce, 
physics the soil or the trees. All definitions are con- 
veniently summed up in the simple formula — "The 
rule of life and conduct." For such a rule of life 
all the three divisions are equally indispensable. 
The man must know his place in nature or else he 
cannot adopt the proper attitude either to the uni- 
verse at large or to his fellow-men. Hence the need 
for physics and ethics. He is in a world of sense 
and sensible things are incessantly craving his at- 
tention. Moreover, he is a rational being capable 
of judging; in fact, he must exercise his judgment 
at every moment of his waking life. Hence he needs 
to have his faculties braced if he is to form right 
judgments and make a right use of the data of sense. 
This is the work of logic. 

Under the department of logic the Stoics in- 
cluded a variety of studies, among them grammar 
and rhetoric, poetry and music. The link of con- 



56 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

nection is that they all have somehow to do with 
thought and speech. Of this whole branch of philos- 
ophy there were four main subdivisions. Dialectic 
embraced what we now know as formal logic, rhet- 
oric was made co-ordinate with dialectic, and there 
followed two subsidiary inquiries, one into definition 
and the other into the standard or test of truth. 
Formal logic, /. e.> the doctrine of the notion, the 
judgment, and the syllogism, had been systemat- 
ically investigated by Aristotle, and the Stoics were 
content to appropriate his results with some not 
very important additions. Thus, besides categorical 
judgments, Chrysippus treated hypothetical and dis- 
junctive judgments with especial fulness and elabo- 
rated the corresponding hypothetical and disjunctive 
syllogisms. He declared the hypothetical syllogism 
to be the normal type of reasoning, of which the cate- 
gorical syllogism is an abbreviation. 

Again, the Stoics were dissatisfied with Aristotle's 
table of ten categories or summa genera and at- 
tempted to frame a new table of their own un- 
der four heads, in which subordination and not 
co-ordination was the guiding principle. These 
are, roughly: (i) substance; (2) essential attribute, 
called form or quality; (3) mode or accident; (4) 
relation or relative mode. If we think of some- 
thing, it must be something which exists. The 
most universal and all-comprehensive general term 
for such an existent thing, and at the same time 
the most indeterminate, is Being or Something. 
Again, when we differentiate the particular some- 
thing we are thinking of and determine it more 
closely, we recognise it as the substratum of certain 
essential attributes. These, according to the Stoic 
view, are forms or qualities which, in themselves 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 57 

corporeal, permeate and pervade its entire sub- 
stance or matter. This gives the second category, 
less universal and more determinate than the first, 
since the various existent things have various quali- 
ties and are determined by various and mutually 
exclusive forms. Next, a further determination 
ensues when we take into account the unessential 
or accidental attributes, which distinguish particular 
things belonging to the same class and exhibiting 
the same forms or qualities. Again, as some of these 
depend upon the relation of one thing to another, in 
such cases a fourth category must be added. 

Here seems an appropriate place to remark that 
the Stoics were the first to grasp and formulate the 
principle of individuality, as it is called (principium 
individuationis), which has since played no small part 
in the history of thought. No two particular things, 
they maintain, are entirely and in all respects similar, 
no two hairs of the head, no two leaves of the forest 
exactly reproduce each other. Each and every ex- 
istent particular is absolutely unique. But a full de- 
scription will always specify that it is (i) a thing, (2) 
of a certain quality, (3) modified in a certain way, (4) 
in a certain relation to something else. In comparing 
with the Aristotelian table the main point to seize is 
that the second, third, and fourth categories imply 
the first, the third, and fourth, the second and the 
fourth all the rest. 

Of the other contributions to formal logic made 
by the Stoics, as indeed of many similar im- 
provements upon Aristotle, it may be said that 
they were for the most part of no great value or 
were even pedantic and useless. But there is one im- 
portant point which, though properly psychological, 
requires to be cleared up in advance and may claim 



58 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

our immediate attention. In what light was the 
subject-matter, with which this whole branch of 
logic deals, regarded by the Stoics ? What precisely, 
in their view, is the content of notions, judgments, 
and syllogisms ? Not external things, not spoken 
words, nor, again, processes of thought so far as 
they are modes of the mind itself. Three things may 
be distinguished: (i) the external thing which a word 
symbolises, of which a word is the name, e. g., the 
really existent moon; (2) the spoken word "moon"; 
(3) that of which the spoken word is significant. To 
us the word "moon" calls up something, because we 
know its meaning, while to a savage totally ignorant 
of the language, even if he hears the spoken word, it 
either has no meaning or calls up something dif- 
ferent. It is this last with which logic deals, ac- 
cording to the Stoics, and which they designate 
Lekton. They held that the first and second, the 
external object and the spoken word, are corporeal, 
but that the last, the meaning of the word, was in- 
corporeal. If this meaning had been identical with 
the external object or with the processes of thinking, 
recollecting, or conceiving the external object, it 
would, according to them, have been corporeal and 
therefore real. But here they were bound to make 
an exception and recognise something incorporeal, 
something fictitious, interpolated as it were, between 
language and thought, between the objective spoken 
word and the equally objective modification of cor- 
poreal mind. Here is a strange inconsistency in a 
system avowedly materialistic, and it naturally pro- 
voked a shower of objections, taunts, and reproaches 
from adversaries belonging to different schools. 
The meaning of a term, then, the subjective idea 
which it excites, is incorporeal, and so are all the 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 59 

judgments in which it plays a part and all the logical 
constructions obtained by combining these judg- 
ments in inference. This anomalous position is not 
assigned to Lekton alone; it is shared by space, 
whether full or empty, and by time. Space, time, and 
the subjective idea or meaning of terms, according 
to the Stoics, have no counterparts in objective 
reality. Let Seneca explain. "There are corporeal 
things, such as this man, this horse. Next follow 
movements of thought conveying an assertion respect- 
ing bodies. These movements of thought have a 
sort of content peculiar to themselves and incorpo- 
real. For instance, I see Cato walking. Sense has 
shown this; my mind has believed it. That which 
I see, that to which I have directed my eyes and my 
mind is a body. Thereupon I say: 'Cato is walk- 
ing/ The thought which I express in these words is 
not corporeal, but by it an assertion is made respect- 
ing body, and some call it a judgment, others an 
assertion, others a predication." 1 

Plato had already distinguished between the 
thought or meaning and the words or language 
in which the thought is clothed, between judgment 
and proposition. The judgment is an unspoken 
proposition, the proposition a judgment expressed 
in words. How was this distinction to be retained 
in a system which allowed reality to corporeal things 
alone ? There are none such corresponding to 
general terms: and yet there are general terms and 
general propositions. Moreover, even a particular 
judgment, "Cato walks," is distinct from the per- 
ception which gives rise to it. The percept is pre- 
sented to sense, the concept or judgment to intellect, 
and the concept is the counterpart of the percept. 

1 Epist. Mor., 117, 13. 



60 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

It is held by the Stoics to be a mental fiction, an 
unreal addition, as it were, a reflection or duplica- 
tion of reality; whereas the act of perceiving, the 
act of judging they regard as activities or modes 
of the corporeal mind. 

In dealing with the problems of psychology the 
Stoics and Epicureans stand on common ground. 
Both agree that whatever appears to have indepen- 
dent existence as spirit can be resolved into a mode or 
function of matter, which is the sole ultimate reality. 
They must be prepared, then, to combat the opposing 
arguments of idealism and in particular to explain 
what mode of existence they assign to mental phenom- 
ena. When Plato in the Sophist asked: "Do you 
pronounce that qualities like virtue and justice and 
the soul in which they inhere are corporeal or in- 
corporeal ? " the answer which he anticipated from 
the materialists of his own time, viz., that the soul 
was a corporeal thing, was precisely the answer 
subsequently given by Stoics and Epicureans alike. 
Both schools argued that, unless the soul were 
corporeal, it could neither act nor be acted upon, 
and both held that mental qualities were hereditary 
and must therefore be connected with a corporeal 
substratum; while in the passage in question Plato 
admits that capacity to act and be acted upon is a 
valid test of real existence. The soul, then, accord- 
ing to the Stoics, is a corporeal thing, a part of uni- 
versal substance or primary being in its purest 
condition of heat or fiery breath. It may be more 
exactly described as warm, vital breath (Pneuma) 
fed by exhalations from the blood. The distinctive 
characters of vital and mental phenomena were 
referred to the fact that the human soul was an 
offshoot or isolated fragment of the world-soul. 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 61 

The later Stoics sometimes describe this divine 
element within the man, this particula divinoe aura, 
as his daemon or genius. The relation between the 
soul of the whole and the soul of the part, or, in other 
words, the divine origin of the human soul, is plainly 
recognised in the hymn of Cleanthes. Soul is the 
unifying principle which holds the organic body 
together. It is diffused all over the body, since 
sensation can be localised at any point of the pe- 
riphery. 

The conception of soul as something corporeal 
present in the organism was nothing new in Greek 
philosophy, and in ignoring the difficulties inherent 
in such a theory the Stoics were at one with their 
predecessors, the hylozoists, and with almost all 
their contemporaries. Here also a comparison be- 
tween the macrocosm and the microcosm had free 
play. As the soul of the universe, or universal soul, 
is one, so also the unity of the human soul is the 
fundamental tenet of the Stoic psychology and the 
key to many of its problems. The doctrine of inter- 
penetration was used to explain the diffusion of 
soul all over the frame. This diffusion was rendered 
compatible with the essential unity of the soul by 
means of the favourite assumption of breath-cur- 
rents. The heart is the seat of the central or govern- 
ing part of soul (Hegemonikon), which for our pur- 
pose it will be best to designate the mind. The 
blood-vessels start from the heart, from the breast 
come the voice and the breath. The five senses, 
with the faculties of speech and propagation, are 
merely channels of communication, breath-currents, 
which connect the centre with various points of the 
circumference. Parts of this theory bear a strong 
family resemblance to the views of Strato the Peripa- 



62 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

tetic. The sense-impressions, he said, are conveyed 
by currents from the periphery to the central organ. 
It is in the central organ that an affection of sense 
is transformed into a sensation of the subject. The 
central organ of soul, however, was located by 
Strato, not in the heart, but in the brain. Herein 
he agreed with Alcmaeon and partly with Plato, 
while the Stoics reverted to Aristotle, who located 
it in the heart. The sense-organs, according to 
Strato, have no more than a capacity for receiving 
and transmitting impressions. So, too, the Stoics 
held that, when sensation takes place, the currents 
connecting the peripheral sense-organ with the 
central organ play the part of a mechanism for 
keeping up communications. They may be com- 
pared to the arms or tentacles of a polypus. It is 
with the central organ alone that we are conscious. 

The Stoics, then, agree with most materialists 
in considering the phenomena of mental life to be 
functions of organic matter, and in assimilating 
them to those ordinary cases of physical action and 
reaction between external bodies which are usually 
held, so far as our present knowledge goes, to be 
unattended by consciousness. The soul cannot be 
broken up into different parts or faculties. There 
is no such distinction as Aristotle made between 
intellect and the rest of soul, which would justify us 
in calling the latter irrational. Even the irrational 
soul of animals must be credited with perception 
and desire. Man is parted from the brutes by the 
possession of that which is variously termed reason, 
thought, or intellect. Under this all other functions 
of a human soul must be subsumed, as also that vital 
principle which man shares with the irrational brute. 
For it may be said that the same force, which in the 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 63 

centre of the soul is reason, is present throughout 
the organism, though it appears merely as a principle 
of coherence in bones and sinews, as a principle of 
growth in hair and nails. The operations of the 
distinctively human soul may be classified under the 
heads of sensation, presentation, assent, desire, 
thought. All alike have their seat in the central or 
governing part of soul, the mind, which is the cor- 
poreal substratum to which they must all be re- 
ferred. Take the case of external perception. 
When the bodily organ, the eye or ear, is affected by 
an external object either by direct contact or through 
a medium, that object, in the view of the Stoics, is 
presented to the mind. "Presentation" is a fair 
equivalent for the Stoic term, which Cicero renders 
by visum. The more literal translation, "appear- 
ance," would be misleading, in so far as it suggests 
an erroneous contrast with reality. Objects, then, 
are presented to the mind through the senses. But 
not all presentations are of this kind. There are 
rational presentations, such as those of moral and 
aesthetic general notions, of space and time and, as 
explained above, of the abstract content of thought 
or the meaning of terms. With all of these the mind 
or reason is conversant, but they are not, as such, 
revealed by sense, i. e., as good and evil, as beautiful 
and ugly, as space or time or Lekton. 

The relation of the other "parts" of soul rec- 
ognised by the Stoics to the whole soul and to the 
governing part has given rise to some controversy. 
On the whole it seems probable that the term "part" 
is misleading. It is better to speak of diverse func- 
tions than of diverse parts, for clearly the seven diverse 
parts have no independent psychical function of their 
own; on the contrary, the eighth or governing part 



64 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

is active in them. The comparison to the arms of a 
polypus must be taken to convey that the other seven 
are branches or ramifications of the central or gov- 
erning part and make up with it a single whole. 
They are, in fact, nothing but its peculiar functions 
attached to some definite organ. Since force and 
matter are inseparable, there can be no opposition 
between function and substance. Wherever there 
is a function of soul, there must be the substance 
or substratum of soul as well. The assumption of 
parts is only needed to explain the various effects 
of soul upon the body and its organs. Even when 
these parts are described as breath-currents con- 
necting the peripheral sense-organs with the centre 
of soul, this description is qualified by ascribing to 
such currents intelligence or consciousness. The 
main fact is that the human soul, like the world-soul, 
is active. It thinks, perceives, desires, and wills 
in virtue of the same living force. Thus difference 
of function rests on and implies essential identity. 
Since, as we have seen, all processes in the soul 
are functions of the governing part, the Stoics recog- 
nised only one faculty, the rational faculty. From 
Socrates they inherited the intellectualism which 
converted all mental processes into, or interpreted 
them as, opinions or judgments. It may also be 
pointed out that this denial of different faculties 
tended to confuse different functions. The bar- 
riers between judgment and will, between what is 
rational and what is irrational, seemed to break down, 
when every operation of the human soul was pro- 
nounced rational. Feeling was merged in knowing, 
and under the elastic term assent or approval were 
combined sense-perception, intellectual judgment, 
and volition. The fault usually alleged against 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 65 

Aristotle's psychology is that he views the soul as 
a bundle of distinct faculties, an incongruous assort- 
ment held together by a purely external tie. A 
superficial reading of his treatise favours this as- 
sumption, though he himself is sometimes most 
anxious to guard against it. The Stoics, whose 
dependence upon Aristotle is direct and obvious, es- 
caped this error only to rush to the opposite ex- 
treme. In the endeavour to unify all phases of mental 
life the intellectual factor was their starting-point. 
The mind is active when it judges, and if judgment 
be interpreted as assent to a proposition, such an 
act of assent forms a link uniting sensation and per- 
ception to desire and will. He who perceives im- 
plicitly assents to the perception as true; he who de- 
sires implicitly assents to the proposition that the 
thing desired is good. The presentation of an ob- 
ject is the part-cause, in the one case of perception, 
in the other case of impulse or desire. The mind 
has free play for its activity in giving or withholding 
its assent to such presentation. All mental states, 
then, however similar, agree in this, that they are 
reactions of the individual subject when he is affected 
by an external object. The presence of the object 
gives rise to the presentation, and I become aware of 
it. My taking note of it is assent or affirmation 
of the form "This is A." Further, it is impos- 
sible to be aware of the object without taking up 
a certain attitude toward it, and from this point 
of view every phase of conation and emotion, whether 
desire, will, or purpose, love or hate or fear, is but 
another interpretation of the judgment "This is A." 
Movement of soul toward (or away from) the ob- 
ject is the general definition applied by the Stoics to 
all the conative or emotional states, which they 



66 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

crudely collected under the term impulse (Horme; 
Latin: Cicero, appetitus ; Seneca, impetus). 

On this psychological basis rests the Stoic theory 
of knowledge. The current belief is that the Stoics 
derived all knowledge from sensation, but this re- 
quires very careful qualification before it can be en- 
dorsed. The mind of a man at birth, we are told, 
is a tabula rasa, a blank tablet, on which he records 
each successive idea or notion. The first written 
characters come through the senses; past sensations 
are retained by memory and, when accumulated, 
constitute experience. From single sensations of 
particular things or particular qualities arise general 
notions, which fall into two great divisions. The 
first are known as preconceptions or intuitions, such 
as that of God or those of good and evil. They 
arise naturally and spontaneously in much the same 
way in all men. The second class are methodically 
and artificially framed and depend upon instruction. 
Such are the notions which a student acquires when 
he learns any particular art or science, such as paint- 
ing or astronomy. Reason, in virtue of which men 
are called rational beings, is developed out of these 
notions. Chrysippus defined reason as a store of 
preconceptions and notions. Different accounts are 
given as to the exact period when reason is developed. 
Whether the accumulation began with the seventh 
year or the fourteenth, it must have been a gradual 
process. The point to decide is how we come by 
preconceptions. Our authorities furnish particular 
information as to various ways in which notions are 
formed by abstraction and generalisation. Some 
are manufactured out of the facts of experience by 
comparing and combining the materials of sense, 
others by analogy, transposition, and contrast, others, 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 67 

again, by privation and by transcending experience. 
Instances are the notion of Socrates formed from his 
picture, of a centaur from the separate notions of 
horse and rider, of the earth's centre from those of 
small spheres, of death by contrast with life, and 
so on; lastly, there is the notion of the incorporeal, 
which transcends experience. The empirical origin 
of most of these notions is quite evident, but not 
of all; and this does not conflict with the statement 
that the earliest records inscribed on the tabula rasa 
come through the senses. But, as sense-material 
is accumulated, there is also a corresponding de- 
velopment of reason, and there is no ground for dis- 
believing the plain statement that the origin of some 
notions is to be sought in reason itself. This will 
become clearer if we consider the class of precon- 
ceptions, the distinctive possession of rational beings, 
and therefore widely, if not universally, distributed 
among mankind. To these preconceptions the Stoics 
appealed in their favourite argument from universal 
assent, from instinctive beliefs and intuitions uncon- 
fined to any age or country. They are general notions, 
but a special class of general notions. The standing 
instances are the practical ideas, the just, the good, the 
beautiful. They are said, as we have seen, to arise 
naturally and spontaneously in all men, which im- 
plies that no special training or instruction is neces- 
sary for their acquisition, but does not exclude the 
possibility that reason and experience are needed to 
render them explicit and precise. 

Such a preconception, then, differs from the in- 
nate idea, in the sense in which Locke used the term, 
for it is certainly not knowledge ready-made, but 
only the germs out of which knowledge grows up. 
For some species of knowledge, for moral truth, in 



68 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

particular, we are favourably disposed by nature. 
While most empirical general notions are painfully 
collected and require skill in comparison, others sug- 
gest themselves in the absence of methodical investi- 
gation. Even children can form them; they are the 
same everywhere. The vague inkling which by na- 
ture we have of good and evil, is subsequently veri- 
fied by experience and strengthened by the exercise 
of reason. Epictetus certainly affirms that all men 
by nature have elementary moral notions. For 
example, their notion of good is that it is beneficial, 
of evil that it is hurtful. They use these terms in a 
definite sense, even when they do not understand 
their full import and content. Epictetus makes 
this the starting-point of his discourse. It is the 
task of man, he maintains, by reflection to work out 
and elaborate these vague preconceptions and make 
them articulate and distinct, in order that these 
moral notions may be applied as the standard by 
which to judge the things of actual experience. By 
such steps, for example, from the vague concep- 
tion of evil as something to be avoided and of that 
which is necessary as something which cannot be 
avoided, we are led to the conclusion that death is no 
evil. When this clarified and articulate notion is 
applied to actual things, we come to have synthetic 
knowledge and to estimate outward things by their 
moral worth. But not every one who has the vague 
notion of evil has developed it so far as to realise 
that death is no evil. Indeed, this could hardly be 
done without the aid of philosophy and that develop- 
ment of reason which it insures. Moreover, if good 
and evil were empirical notions derived wholly from 
experience, men would not differ so widely in the 
application of these notions to things, i. e., in their 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 69 

moral judgments. As it is, since the things them- 
selves tell us nothing of their value for us, there is 
room for divergence and conflict. Experience prac- 
tically never shows us the ideal of virtue. 

But to return to sensible experience. Through 
the sense-organs the mind has contact, directly 
or indirectly, with external objects. The reaction 
technically known as the presentation, visum, of an 
object was defined as an impression in the soul or in 
the governing part of the soul, and compared by 
Cleanthes to the imprint of a seal reproducing 
faithfully protuberances and depressions in the wax. 
Chrysippus substituted the term "alteration" for 
"impression." The rejection of the crude com- 
parison does not affect the attitude of the soul, 
which remains more passive than active. For an 
act of perception many things are required. The 
presence of the object and the possession of sound 
senses do not depend upon the percipient, but he 
on his part must direct his attention to the object 
and observe it if he would escape from hallucination. 
For the evidence of the senses is not always to be 
trusted, and it lies in his power by an act of judgment 
or decision to accept as true a presentation of sense 
or to reject it as false or even in doubtful cases to 
withhold judgment. In the process of assent the 
mind's activity is evident. If we . assent to a true 
presentation, the result is simple apprehension; if 
to a false or unconvincing presentation, the result 
is opinion, a mental state which is always disparaged 
as akin to error and ignorance unworthy of the 
sage. 

There remains the practical question, How is the 
percipient to be sure which of his presentations 
are true, affording him the means of knowing real 



70 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

external objects, and how are they to be distinguished 
from untrustworthy presentations, which are before 
his mind when he makes a mistake or is subject to 
hallucination or madness ? This inquiry, so im- 
portant to all schools after the time of Aristotle, 
is generally described as the inquiry for a criterion 
of truth, a standard of knowledge. Our authorities 
report that the older Stoics made right reason 
(Logos) the standard, that Chrysippus interpreted 
this by declaring sensation and preconception to be 
the twofold test or criterion of truth, while the school 
in general, especially the later Stoics, ultimately 
settled on a particular character of certain presenta- 
tions as affording a valid test of truth and guarantee 
of reality. Such a presentation was technically 
known as the "apprehending" presentation. It was 
recognised that none but true presentations have 
this particular apprehensive character, though it does 
not follow that it is possessed by all true presenta- 
tions, for an opinion may be correct and yet not 
certain to its possessor. When we compare these 
three answers: (i) right reason, (2) sensation and 
preconception, (3) a particular kind of presentation, 
it is important to remember that the question what 
is the criterion is ambiguous. It may mean (1) who 
distinguishes, (2) what means does he use to dis- 
tinguish, or (3) by what sign does he distinguish truth 
from error ? In an inquiry for the standard of truth 
we are certainly asking by whom is truth distinguished 
from error, and it would be an adequate answer to 
say, "By the sage, in so far as he possesses right 
reason." But we may want to know more precisely 
what means does he use, what function is he exer- 
cising when he so distinguishes. The answer of 
Chrysippus is here to the point, viz., that this is done 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 71 

by sensation and preconception, the one being his 
guide for sensible things, the other for moral and 
aesthetic ideas. Even this is not enough. We go on 
to inquire, How does the sage apply this twofold 
criterion to any particular case in order to dis- 
tinguish truth from error ? His procedure is exactly 
like that of the carpenter when he applies his rule 
to a surface in order to measure it, or like that of 
one who employs a balance to determine weight. 
He brings his faculties to bear upon the object, and, 
provided his sense-organs are normal and healthy, 
provided a real external object be present, the result 
is a presentation of the particular kind known as 
apprehending. He has then an immediate certainty 
of conviction that he is apprehending a real object 
through its real qualities. His immediate certainty 
is the subjective counterpart of objective reality. 

The precise force of the adjective "apprehen- 
sive" as applied to a presentation has given rise 
to some uncertainty. Etymologically it ought to 
be active in meaning, although the corresponding 
negative adjective is apparently not active but pas- 
sive in form, as if the Stoics divided presentations 
into those which can apprehend and those which 
cannot be apprehended. It has been supposed that 
the adjective "apprehensive," at least upon occasion, 
was taken in a passive sense or was purposely ren- 
dered ambiguous and taken in a sense partly active, 
partly passive. This I now believe to be an un- 
founded assumption. Through the presentation 
the mind of the percipient apprehends the real 
qualities of the real object. The fact that a similar 
word is used to describe the irresistible force of 
conviction engendered by such a presentation, 
which, in the words of Sextus, "seizes upon the sub- 



72 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

ject, as it were, by the hair and extorts his assent," 
is a mere coincidence and nothing to the point. 
Again, the feeble and unreal presentations of mere 
opinion or hallucination are sometimes called, not 
inapprehensive, but inapprehensible — as Cicero ex- 
presses it, visa quce comprehendi non possunt. For 
presentation is here interchanged with object pre- 
sented; when I experience a feeble or false presen- 
tation the external thing objectively presented, the 
content of the presentation, is apprehended by me 
either imperfectly or not at all. 

To proceed. The presentation thus obtained, 
immediately certain because faithfully reproducing 
a real object, has an important part assigned to it in 
the development of knowledge. All empirical science 
is merely a system of apprehensions of this kind 
strung together and closely connected; and similarly 
in the world of moral and aesthetic ideas, we start 
each with the same presentments, whether of the 
good, the beautiful, or of God, and all ethics is but 
a system by which they are linked together and 
further developed, the discursive reason being the 
great instrument by which they are manipulated 
and extended. But the systems of science and 
morality, however vast they grow, are after all but 
accretions built up and developed from single isolated 
cells or atoms of certainty, each a separate, irref- 
ragable presentation, whether to sense or to reason, 
and capable of verification at every step by experience. 
The relation between the elementary constituents 
and the perfected whole or system Zeno sought to 
make clear by his celebrated simile. We follow 
Cicero's version of the story: "Showing his hand 
open to view with the fingers stretched out, 'pres- 
entation/ said Zeno, 'is like this.' Then, closing 



PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 73 

his fingers slightly, 'assent is like this.' Next, when 
he had entirely pressed his fingers together and 
clinched his fist, he declared this position to re- 
semble the act of mental apprehension. Again, 
when he had brought up his left hand and had en- 
closed the other fist in its tight and powerful grasp, 
that position he declared to resemble knowledge or 

1 Acad. Pr., II, 145. 



CHAPTER III 

MORAL IDEALISM 

The two preceding chapters have made clear the 
practical tendency of the Stoic system. Logic, psy- 
chology, and physics — indeed, the whole of science, 
the entire theory of man and the universe, serve as a 
basis for morals. The outcome of all study is a 
rational life, a virtuous life, a happy and successful 
life, which to the Stoic are but different names for 
one and the same thing. Even the study of ethics 
deserves consideration only so far as it promotes 
this life. But first a word upon the form taken by 
ethical inquiries. To us the Tightness or wrongness 
of conduct is its fundamental attribute. A right 
action is an action which ought to be performed, 
where the notion expressed by 'ought' is too ele- 
mentary for definition. But this is not the way in 
which the Greeks approached the subject. They 
raised the more comprehensive question, What is 
the good ? By right actions they meant those which 
lead to the attainment of the good. Reflection and 
discussion revealed a hopeless diversity of opinion as 
to what the good really was. Some identified it with 
pleasure, some with interest or utility; some allowed 
a variety of goods, mental, bodily, and external, 
others argued that from its very nature there could 
only be a single supreme good. The antithesis be- 
tween what we now call moral and material good 
was only gradually developed. No Greek denied 

74 



MORAL IDEALISM 75 

that judgments of praise and blame attached to 
specific actions or, in other words, that virtue was a 
good, vice an evil. The disagreement arose when 
the attempt was made to assign virtue its place in 
relation to the other things ordinarily recognised as 
good, such as pleasure, knowledge, health, or even 
external advantages like wealth, fame, and honour. 
All these things were conceived to exert an attraction 
upon the individual and to invite pursuit. The choice 
of an end of course regulated the means for its at- 
tainment: success or failure afforded an empirical 
test of the Tightness or wrongness of conduct relative 
to the ulterior end pursued. All Greek ethical 
systems appear to us more or less prudential, self- 
regarding, or, as it is sometimes expressed, eudaemo- 
nistic. \Socrates declared that he had never heard of 
a good which was not good for some one,! and when 
the main problems of ethics take the form of asking 
what things are good in themselves and what con- 
duct is the right means to good results, we are tempted, 
however unfairly, to interpret good as good for me, 
ignoring the fact that the inquirer is seeking a rule 
of objective validity and universal application. 

For convenience of instruction the Stoics treated of 
scientific ethics under six heads: (i) impulse natural 
and rational, (2) the end of action, (3) virtue, (4) 
the classification of things as good, evil, and morally 
indifferent, (5) a similar classification of actions, and 
(6) emotion. Of these sections the first and last largely 
consist of psychological inquiries. The distinctive 
points in their ethics, upon which they were involved 
in controversy with other schools, concerned the 
determination of the end and the relation to virtue 
of those external things which ordinary men reckon 
among goods. To understand this controversy, how- 



76 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

ever, we must revert to the fundamental points of 
doctrine already established, particularly the relation 
of man as a rational being to the universe. ( If the 
universe is essentially rational, then the good is 
perfectly realised in it, and in this realisation all 
rational beings, as citizens of the one city of Zeus, 
co-operate, for reason is the common tie which binds 
all its members in the closest association, and the 
\^ course of the world is regulated by a law of inner 
causality, working always and everywhere for the 
best^J This is a necessary conclusion, if we fix our 
gaze upon the whole universe, and the hymn of 
Cleanthes, as we have seen, has given it adequate 
expression. Let us now turn from the whole uni- 
verse to its parts and consider the individual man. 
He is a part, but a rational part. He stands, then, 
in a certain relation to this organic whole and to other 
similar parts of it. His attitude is determined by 
the knowledge of these relations. As a part, he is 
subordinate and, like all parts, he must obey the 
universal law, which by the reason within him bids 
him do certain things and refrain from others. In 
this way \Epictetus declares that the highest aim 
is to follow God and please Him, to live in His ser- 
vice and obey His commands. The same thought 
appears in a poetical fragment" 1 of Cleanthes, which 
may be thus rendered: 

Lead me, O Zeus, lead Thou me, Destiny, 
By whatsoever path ye have ordained. 
I will not flinch; but if, to evil prone, 
My will rebelled, I needs must follow still. 

With this may be compared the words of Seneca: 
" Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt." 2 Resig- 

1 Fragment 91, p. 313, Pearson. 2 Seneca, Epistles, 107, 10. 



MORAL IDEALISM 77 

nation to the course of destiny, submission to the 
divinely appointed order of the world is the proper 
attitude for man. This would be an exact definition 
of the ethical end as conceived by Cleanthes. There 
is but one way to happiness and freedom, and that 
is to will nothing but what is in the nature of things, 
nothing that will not be realised independently of 
us. In this way success is insured beforehand. 
Our wishes cannot be balked or disappointed. Our 
rational freedom is a willing co-operation with des- 
tiny, instead of a reluctant submission under com- 
pulsion. Chrysippus, by the express testimony of 
his critic Plutarch, whenever he laid down any moral 
precept, started with a long preamble about Zeus, 
Destiny, and Providence, in conformity with his 
general principle that all ethical inquiries must 
start with considering the universal order and ar- 
rangement of the world. 1 

w Let us proceed to the line of argument by which 
the Stoics sought to justify their conclusions. They 
had somehow to arrive at virtue starting either from 
nature or from reason. They required to prove 
that moral good or virtue is the natural object of a 
rational man's desire and pursuit. The all-em- 
bracing end which is never a means they found in 
life itself, a life consistent and harmonious, the 
smooth flow of existence unchecked by eddies and 
cross-currents. Of such a life activity and energy, 
not feeling or emotion, are the constituent elements. 
To live such a life the individual man must be in 
harmony with himself and with reason, that reason 
which is his own individual nature and at the same 
time the nature of the whole universe. In the form- 
ula "Follow nature," the word 'nature' may mean 

1 De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, c. 9. 



78 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the nature of the universe or our human nature, but 
since we are organic parts of the universe, the two 
interpretations come in the end to the same thing. 
We must be guided by experience of the course of 
nature. This formula points in two directions: (i) to 
submission to the divine will, the course of Provi- 
dence, the inevitable, and (2) to the perfecting and 
full development of the divine within us, the guardian 
genius or daemon, our human reason, intelligence, and 
mind. But this development is a process in time. 
Man is born into the world a non-moral being, and 
though he has natural, uncorrupted impulses, he is 
not much better off during his helpless minority than 
the brutes. The primary impulse in the human 
infant, as in the brute, is toward self-preservation. 
Let us quote the words of Diogenes Laertius, 1 whose 
summary of Stoic ethics is on this point universally 
held in the main to follow Chrysippus: 

"The first instinct which the animal has is the 
impulse to self-preservation with which nature en- 
dows it at the outset. The first possession which 
every animal acquires is its own organic unity and 
the perception thereof. If this were not so, nature 
must either have estranged from itself the creature 
which she has made or left it utterly indifferent to 
itself, neither of which assumptions is tenable. 
The only alternative is that she should have designed 
the creature to love itself. For in this way it repels 
what harms it and welcomes what benefits it. It 
is not true, as some say, that the first instinct of ani- 
mals is toward pleasure. For pleasure, if it is an 
end at all, is a concomitant of later growth which 
follows when the nature of the animal in and by 
itself has sought and found what is appropriate to it. 

1 Diogenes Laertius, VII, 85. 



MORAL IDEALISM 79 

Under like circumstances animals sport and gambol 
and plants grow luxuriant. Nature has made no 
absolute severance between plants and animals: in 
her contrivance of plants she leaves out impulse and 
sensation, while certain processes go on in us as they 
do in plants. But when animals have been further 
endowed with instinct, by whose aid they go in search 
of the things which benefit them, then to be governed 
by nature means for them to be governed by instinct. 
When rational animals are endowed with reason, in 
token of more complete superiority, in them life in 
accordance with nature is rightly understood to 
mean life in accordance with reason. For reason 
is like a craftsman shaping impulse and desire. 
Hence Zeno's definition of the end is to live in con- 
formity with nature, which means to live a Jife of 
virtue, since it is to virtue that nature leads.j On 
the other hand, a virtuous life is a life which con- 
forms to our experience of the course of nature, our 
human natures being but parts of universal nature. 
Thus the end is a life which follows nature, whereby 
is meant not only our own nature, but the nature of 
the universe, a life wherein we do nothing that is 
forbidden by the universal law, i. e. y by right reason, 
which pervades all things and is identical with Zeus, 
the guide and governor of the universe. The virtue 
of the happy man, his even flow* of life, is realised only 
when in all the actions he does his individual genius 
is in harmony with the will of the ruler of the uni- 
verse. Virtue is a disposition conformable to reason, 
desirable in and for itself and not because of any 
hope or fear or any external motive. And well- 
being depends on virtue, on virtue alone, since the 
virtuous soul is adapted to secure harmony in the 
whole of life. When reason in the animal is per- 



80 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

verted, this is due to one of two causes, either to the 
persuasive force of external things or to the bad in- 
struction of those surrounding it. The instincts 
which nature implants are unperverted." 

The unknown Stoic whom Cicero follows puts the 
matter thus: "Immediately upon its birth a sentient 
creature is attracted to its own being and is impelled 
to maintain its own existence and to feel affection 
for its own constitution and for all that tends to main- 
tain that constitution, while it recoils from death and 
from all that seems to induce death. One considera- 
tion is sufficient to prove this. Children, before 
pain or pleasure has touched them, crave for what 
is wholesome and refuse what is hurtful; this would 
not be so unless they felt affection for their own 
constitution and shrank from death. They could 
by no means yearn after anything, unless they had 
consciousness of their own personality and so felt 
affection for themselves. From this we are bound 
to understand that the earliest impulse proceeds from 
love of self. Moreover, among the earliest objects 
of natural impulse pleasure has no place. Its in- 
clusion among them would involve many immoral 
consequences. Our affection for the objects above 
mentioned needs no further proof than this, that no 
one with both alternatives open to him would hot 
prefer that all parts of his body should be symmetrical 
and sound, rather than dwarfed and warped, even 
if their usefulness remained the same." x The com- 
mon quality which makes objects of this class to 
be preferred to their opposites by unreasoning in- 
stinct is termed value. "In order to have value, a 
thing must either be itself in harmony with nature 
or else be the means of procuring something which 

1 Cicero, Be Finibus, III, §§ 16, 17. 



MORAL IDEALISM 81 

is so. All objects, then, that are in accordance with 
nature are relatively choiceworthy on their own ac- 
count, while their opposites have negative value and 
call for rejection. The primary duty is that the 
creature should maintain itself in its natural con- 
stitution; next, that it should cleave to all that is in 
harmony with nature and spurn all that is not; and 
when once this principle of choice and of rejection 
has been arrived at, the next stage is choice, con- 
ditioned by inchoate duty; next, such a choice is 
exercised continuously; finally it is rendered un- 
wavering and in thorough agreement with nature; 
and at that stage the conception of what good really 
is begins to dawn within us and be understood. 
Man's earliest attraction is to those things which are 
conformable to nature, but as soon as he has laid 
hold of general ideas or notions and has seen the 
regular order and harmony of conduct, he then values 
that harmony far higher than all the objects for 
which he had felt the earliest affection and he is led 
to the reasoned conclusion that herein consists the 
supreme human good. In this harmony consists 
the good, which is the standard of action; from 
which it follows that all moral action, nay, morality 
itself, which alone is good, though of later origin in 
time, has the inherent value and worth to make it 
the sole object of choice, for none of the objects to 
which earlier impulses are directed is choiceworthy 
in and for itself." * 

Here the main tenets stand out sharply: the prior- 
ity in time of the non-moral instinctive impulses 
directed to self-preservation and the attainment of 
external things conformable to the economy of nature; 
the steady growth of firmness and constancy in the 

1 Cicero, De Finibus, III, §§ 20, 21. 



82 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

actions of choice and rejection to which these im- 
pulses give rise; the dawn and development of 
reason, as the harmony of nature begins to be under- 
stood, as general notions are successively framed 
and vague preconceptions made more definite by ex- 
perience, until the greatest of these, the conception 
of moral good, emerges clear and precise. Five 
stages in the performance of duty are distinguished 
by Cicero. The first four are not yet moral: they 
fall within the competence of the child and mark a 
continual progress on the road to virtue not yet 
reached. In the last stage, when invariable consist- 
ency and conformity to nature has been reached, 
we recognise the ethical end as previously defined. 

At this point the exposition may be profitably in- 
terrupted by a few general criticisms. It has been 
well said that in all ancient systems the attempt to 
construct ethics on a philosophic basis easily lends 
itself to reasoning in a circle. With the Stoics the 
circular demonstration is the neatest and the most 
easily detected of any. The semblance of cogent 
deduction is illusory. The plain man is told that to 
live according to nature is the end. But "nature" is 
ambiguous. Sometimes the term denotes that which 
is, sometimes that which ought to be, on the one 
hand that which actually exists everywhere or for the 
most part, as when natural impulse is said to be 
directed to self-preservation, and on the other hand 
that which would exist if the original plan of man's 
life were fully carried out, as when to live in con- 
formity with nature is identified with a life of virtue. 
A similar ambiguity in the term reason did not escape 
the Stoics themselves, for they sometimes contrasted 
mere reason with right reason. This by the way. 
Let us pass on to inquire in what life according to 



MORAL IDEALISM 83 

nature consists. The answer is, in a life at one with 
reason, in a harmonious, consistent life, tending to 
realise a single, self-consistent aim. If so, the life 
according to nature must be followed because it is 
the reasonable life or life according to reason. Here 
the circle is complete. It is reasonable to live ac- 
cording to nature and natural to live according to 
reason, and as to the content of virtue, the particulars 
of conduct, we have no more information than at the 
outset. Nor is the case better if we call to our aid 
the conception of knowledge. The Stoics insist that 
the life which both reason and nature demand is a 
virtuous life, and they agree with Socrates that 
virtue is identical with knowledge. But how are the 
particulars of good conduct determined ? What is 
the content of this knowledge ? Surely the good : 
and, as they also hold that only virtue is good, not 
pleasure nor merely theoretical cognition, the circle 
is again complete. 

Fresh difficulties arise over the distinction drawn 
by them between natural instinct and rational im- 
pulse, for both turn out, after all, to be concerned 
with the same class of objects, viz., the things in- 
different which are according to nature. Reason, 
it is true, desires the good, but this supreme end 
is realised by the immediate choice of things not 
in themselves good. As Cicero urges, what can be 
more illogical than to assert that, after acquiring a 
knowledge of the supreme good, we turn back to 
nature and seek from her a principle of right con- 
duct ? For it is not our views of conduct which 
impel us to seek the objects that are in agreement 
with nature: on the contrary, it is by these objects 
that all impulse and all activity are called into being. 1 

1 Cicero, De Finibus, IV, § 48. 



84 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

It may, perhaps, be fairer to regard the assumption 
that virtue is the sole good as a postulate which can 
only be justified when the results following from it 
are tested by experience. The test applied is that 
of success or failure. The Stoics are entitled to argue 
that to desire the unattainable is futile and stands 
self-condemned, and that, as certain things are not 
in our power to command, our efforts must be with- 
drawn from them and concentrated upon those 
things which are in our power, our volitions, pur- 
poses, moral character — in short, our inner life. By 
confining our attention to these we can insure 
success. This brings us to the conception in which 
success is embodied as happiness or welfare. Nei- 
ther of these English equivalents of the Greek term 
Eudaemonia is free from misleading associations. 
It is not primarily a state of feeling, still less does it 
connote enjoyment of external prosperity, but rather 
corresponds to the objective condition established 
when the end is attained. If so, it is something 
more akin to perfection or self-realisation, as these 
terms are used by modern theorists. To be happy 
on the rack is unintelligible unless by this so-called 
happiness is understood the consciousness of an 
objective relation. "When the mind," says Hume, 
"by Stoical reflections is elevated into a sublime 
enthusiasm of virtue, and strongly smit with any 
species of honour or public good, the utmost bodily 
pain and sufferance will not prevail over such a high 
sense of duty; and 'tis possible, perhaps, by its 
means even to smile and exult in the midst of tor- 
tures. But how," Hume pertinently asks, "can the 
philosopher support this enthusiasm itself?" 1 As I 

1 Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part I (II, 383, 
ed. Green and Grose). 



MORAL IDEALISM 85 

conceive it, the answer becomes clearer from the an- 
alogy of the arts. The poet, the painter, the mu- 
sician have made their way into a new world of 
beauty, where their creative impulse finds free play, 
and they exercise their art for art's sake alone. 
Similarly the dawn of reason opens a new world to 
the Stoic, where he also is awake and alive to the 
symmetry and harmony and charm of moral ideas. 
There his creative impulse finds free play in dis- 
interested conduct, and, as with the artist, so with 
him, the gratification of this impulse, or, as Hume 
calls it, enthusiasm, absorbs all his energies. In 
both alike the impelling motive is the attractive 
force of beauty, in the one case aesthetic, in the other 
moral. 

To resume. In the view of the Stoics a rational 
life, in conformity with the general course of the 
world, is the highest good. Virtue alone is good 
and welfare or happiness consists exclusively in 
virtuous action. Virtue is the fountain or source 
from which particular actions flow. It is a per- 
manent disposition, when the soul is set or bent to 
realise harmony and consistency in the whole of con- 
duct. Such a condition of soul is to be chosen for 
its own sake and not from the expectation of good 
or fear of evil, for no external results following upon 
it could possibly increase or diminish its absolute 
and unconditional value. Hence Chrysippus ridiculed 
the Platonic myths of rewards and punishments in a 
future life as bugbears intended to frighten children. 
The life of the bad man upon earth is the true hell. 
Whether the virtuous disposition be interpreted as a 
state of the will or of the intellect, the Stoics were 
bound by their psychology to maintain its unity. 
Their definition of prudence, one of the virtues, viz., 



86 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

that it is the science of what should be done and 
what should be left undone and of things indifferent, 
would stand mutatis mutandis for any of the others. 
At the same time they were entitled to recognise, 
not only the four cardinal virtues, prudence, temper- 
ance, courage, and justice, but also to subordinate to 
these a number of others generally recognised as 
commendable qualities. They merely explained that 
by a plurality of virtues is only meant the different 
manifestations in action of the virtuous disposition 
in various relations to different objects, in all of 
which relations it is essentially the same. Thus the 
same priceless knowledge or science which becomes 
courage when directed to objects inspiring fear or 
confidence or a neutral attitude is known as temper- 
ance when it is directed to objects of choice or avoid- 
ance or to those indifferent things which call for 
neither of these attitudes. It is also justice in so far 
as it assigns to each man his deserts. "Virtue," says 
Aristo, "when it considers what should be done and 
what should not be done, is called prudence; when it 
controls desire and defines what is moderate and 
seasonable in pleasures, it is called temperance; when 
it is concerned with dealings and contracts with 
other men, it is called justice." 1 In any case these 
several particular virtues mutually accompany each 
other. A man cannot be perfect unless he possesses 
all the virtues, nor can an action be perfect unless 
it is done in accordance with all the virtues, so that, 
virtue being one and indivisible, it is impossible to 
possess a single virtue without possessing all. This 
holds of altruistic conduct, for the Stoics believed 
that self-regarding virtues cannot exist without the 
social virtues. The good of society is best attained 

1 Plutarch, Virt. Mor., 441 A. 



MORAL IDEALISM 87 

by each individual pursuing his own good. . The per- 
manence of this virtuous disposition implies that, 
once attained, it can never be lost, so long as man is a 
rational being, and it becomes a minor question of 
casuistry whether the circumstances which tend to 
impair the supremacy of reason, such as intoxication 
or hypochondria, involve a temporary lapse from 
virtue. 

Another consequence which follows directly from 
the definition was often presented in an offensive 
paradoxical form, viz., that there can be no degrees 
in virtue and no middle point between virtue and 
vice. A man's disposition either is virtuous or it is 
not. As there are no degrees in straightness, so one 
virtue is equally virtuous with another and all sin 
and vice, by the mere fact that it falls short of 
this absolute perfection, is on the same footing of 
equal depravity. This conclusion, so repugnant 
to common sense and the ordinary conventions of 
human society, can be rendered intelligible by a 
comparison with New Testament teaching, as when 
St. Paul maintains that whatever is not of faith is 
of sin, or when it is laid down that he who offends 
in one point is guilty of the whole law. Such 
teaching, whether Christian or Stoic, is bound to 
divide the world of existing men into two opposing 
classes, saints and sinners, the wise and the foolish, 
between whom there is a great gulf fixed. Popular 
Christianity admits that an individual man may 
pass from the one class to the other by conversion, 
and there are traces of a similar belief among some 
of the Stoics. But, on the whole, Stoicism was chary 
of bestowing the appellation "wise" upon any actual 
man. To the question, Who, then, are the wise ? 
the Stoic probably of any age, and certainly the later 



88 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Stoics, would point either to legendary heroes, like 
Hercules and Ulysses, or among historical men 
to famous names of an earlier and far-off time. 
To the founders of the school Socrates, Antisthenes, 
and Diogenes served as examples; at a later date, 
Zeno and Chrysippus. By the Stoics of the Empire, 
Cato was, so to speak, canonised. But we have 
every right to infer that just as Epictetus does not 
claim to be himself wise and perfect, so neither did 
any of the eminent Stoics who preceded him make 
a similar claim in their own lifetime. 

It comes to this, then, that the wise man is an 
ideal and Stoicism a system of moral idealism. 
But this was never fully recognised because the 
Stoics at the same time held this ideal to be capable 
of complete realisation here and now by any man 
who followed the dictates of reason. Instead of re- 
nouncing the task of attaining an impossible wisdom, 
the school introduced the conception of progress 
toward virtue. Life on this view becomes a grand 
experiment. Teacher and pupil alike are engaged 
in one common endeavour. They set out as ad- 
venturers in quest of well-being or, like Bunyan's 
pilgrims, on a long and toilsome journey. The 
Stoic cherishes no illusions as to the moral condition 
of those in this state of progress or probation; he is 
conscious that they have not yet attained to virtue 
and, ipso facto, must still be reckoned among the 
unwise and sinful. The rigid demands of ideal 
morality are never one jot abated. On the high seas, 
he who is one foot below the surface is drowned 
as surety as if he were five hundred fathoms down. 
And so Chrysippus lays down firmly that he who has 
almost completed his progress toward virtue, who 
discharges all moral duties in every way, without 



MORAL IDEALISM 89 

omitting any, has, nevertheless, notjyet attained the 
life of well-being and happiness. 1 One thing is 
still lacking. Yet, as the Stoics were honestly 
bent upon the moral improvement of mankind, they 
came to concentrate their energies more and more 
upon the effort to initiate, encourage, and continue 
in every one, however ignorant and sinful the idea, the 
hope and ardent desire of making progress. Indeed, 
this is the chief content of philosophy to later Stoics, 
such as Seneca and Epictetus. But it would be an 
error to suppose that this was an innovation or that 
it had been neglected by the founders. We have 
express testimony to the contrary. Zeno claimed 
that dreams furnished an easy test by which any one 
might discover whether he were making progress. 
If he found upon examination that even in sleep 
his imagination never ran on impure delight, evil 
thoughts or actions, this was a sure sign. 2 ICleanthes 
says in a striking passage: "Man walks in wicked- 
ness all his life or, at any rate, for the greater part 
of it. If he ever attains to virtue, it is late and at the 
very sunset of his days." r j Here he evidently has in 
mind the state of probation and the possibility that 
the probationer may not have emerged from it when 
death overtakes him. The explicit testimony of 
Chrysippus to such a state has already been cited. 

We pass now to that side of the system in which 
some 4 have seen a concession to the demands of 
common sense, a modification of abstract theory to 
meet practical considerations. The charge seems 
unwarranted, but it concerns the precise point on 

1 Stobaeus, Florilegium, 103, 22; Von Arnim, Vol. Ill, No. 510, p. 137. 

2 Pearson, Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes, No. 160, p. 196; Von 
Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, Vol. I, No. 234, p. 56. 

3 Pearson, No. 51, p. 281; Von Arnim, Vol. I, No. 529, p. 120. 

4 E. g., Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, c. XI, p. 278. 



90 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

which Zeno and all his school diverged from the 
Cynics, whose doctrine in this particular was re- 
tained by Zeno's heterodox pupil Aristo. What is the 
attitude of a perfectly wise and good man to external 
things ? The Cynics and Aristo maintained that, 
since virtue alone is good and vice alone is evil, this 
attitude should be to treat all other things as abso- 
lutely indifferent, attaching no value to one in pref- 
erence to another. At this rate wealth and poverty, 
health and sickness, sight and blindness, life and 
death, are to the sage of absolutely no moment. 
There is no rational ground why any one of them 
should move his will rather than any other. Such 
a view carried out strictly means the upheaval of 
all society, and the revolutionary Cynics did so 
carry it out. Aristo was free from the extravagances 
of the Cynics, but like them, he rejected physics and 
logic as useless, thus narrowing down philosophy to 
the precepts of practical morality. All authorities 
agree that Zeno introduced the conception of value 
in the estimation of things external and coined a pair 
of uncouth technical terms to designate the classes 
of things which have positive and negative value 
respectively, calling the former desirable and pre- 
ferred, the other undesirable and unpreferred. 1 In 
this connection value must be understood as a 
relative term, but value for what or for whom ? 
Presumably for the agent, because he can put the 
external things to a good or a bad use. This value 
does not reside in the things themselves, but in the 
judgment of the reason. Even the child, before he 
develops reason, is prompted by nature to prefer 
certain external things to their opposites. What, 
then, is the ground alike of the rational judgment 

1 Proegmena and Apoproegmena. 



MORAL IDEALISM 91 

and of the instinct ? It is not that the things pre- 
ferred contribute or co-operate to our well-being or 
happiness. To make such an admission would be 
a fatal mistake, for if health and wealth were pro- 
ductive of the good, it would be impossible to deny, 
as all Stoics invariably do, that they are themselves 
entitled to rank as goods. 

There is a similar difficulty, it may be remarked, 
in Aristotle's ethical theory. His end, miscalled 
happiness, is a good per se. But, unlike the Stoics, 
he admitted that there were other goods per se in, 
and for themselves desirable, such as wisdom and 
pleasure; and the relation of these latter to his 
chief and highest good, his end or happiness, he no- 
where clearly explains. The difficulty is far greater 
with the Stoics, who recognise only one good per se, 
viz., virtuous activity. The ultimate fact is the 
judgment of preference. The external thing pre- 
ferred is capable of moving the will, which must be 
because it has a natural attraction. That when so 
much has been admitted they should still refuse to 
call it good, either per se or even as a means to good 
per se is a strange inconsistency. Why does the 
Stoic take care of his health ? Because it is a re- 
quirement of reason, a commandment of God, 
because he has certain knowledge that salva virtute 
health is more according to nature than sickness, 
and therefore to be preferred, so far as extraordinary 
considerations do not come into play. And, since 
happiness consists in the attainment of what we 
will, the performance of duty in this respect of taking 
care of health is in itself a good per se, which is at- 
tained by the mere act of preference. We should 
not be happy if without regard to circumstances we 
refused to prefer health or deliberately rejected it for 



92 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

sickness. 1 The deepest thought of Stoic ethics is 
that virtuous or vicious life is not to be regarded as a 
sum of isolated virtuous or vicious actions, but as 
an inward unity governed by a single principle, good 
or bad will, godly or worldly disposition, spirit or 
flesh. The class of things preferred is illustrated by 
such mental qualities as genius, skill, moral progress; 
such bodily qualities as life, health, strength, sound- 
ness of constitution and limb, beauty; such ex- 
ternal advantages as wealth, repute, noble birth. 
With one exception, that of life, all the items on this 
list are accidents of individual men and not essential 
constituents of human nature. Most of them are 
held to be "gifts of fortune." To the Stoic they are 
the dispensations of Providence, results of the divine- 
ly appointed, unalterable course of nature. When 
they come to him, he gratefully accepts them and 
makes the most of them; when they do not come 
or are taken away, he as cheerfully dispenses with 
them. For he knows well that true happiness does 
not depend upon them; their presence or absence 
leaves unaffected the pearl of great price, the true and 
only good, which is at all times within his reach, if 
he so wills. But none the less he is bound to take 
a rational view of his environment and estimate every 
object at its due value. This judgment of value 
determines impulse and action and converts the 
thing so judged into material for the exercise of 
virtue. Or the same thing may be otherwise ex- 
pressed by insisting on the importance of attend- 
ing to perceptions and using them correctly. Since 
the term perception here includes presentations to 
thought as well as to sense, our entire attitude toward 
and judgment upon outward reality is thus summed 

1 Stobeeus, Eclogue, Vol. II, p. 86 (Wachsmuth). 



MORAL IDEALISM 93 

up. Sin is propagated by bad example and false in- 
struction, but in part it is due to the deceitfulness of 
appearances, the false suggestions to which outward 
things give rise. Against this deception reason is an 
effectual guard only when it is trained and disciplined. 
Thus alone we learn to appraise each thing at its 
true value, for, as above remarked, things them- 
selves tell us nothing of their true value. 

We have thus unfolded the conception of a scale 
of value, positive and negative, to be assigned to all 
external things. In themselves they are neither mor- 
ally good nor morally evil. Such a conception is 
intimately connected with the rudimentary theory 
of duty expressed in the technical term Kathekon, 
which Cicero rendered by oficium. Duty, in the 
strict imperative sense, is not a Stoic conception. 
Etymologically, the Greek term Kathekon is wholly 
destitute of the notion of obligation or categorical im- 
perative and might, indeed, be translated "suitable" 
rather than "right," where by "suitable" is meant 
"becoming to man," suitable to his nature and being. 
Such was the meaning given to the term by Zeno, 
who first introduced it into ethics. 1 But so much 
casuistical discussion took place upon what was or 
was not suitable that a train of associations became 
attached to the word, associations which were after- 
ward inherited by the Romans. Thus the modern 
idea of duty grew up, fostered by the Roman char- 
acter and their love of law, and ultimately borrowing 
its expression from the formulas of Roman juris- 
prudence, as the term "obligation" itself testifies. 

1 Cleanthes and Chrysippus sometimes use Epiballon apparently as a 
substitute for Kathekon. The literal meaning of Epiballon is "that 
which falls to or upon," of Kathekon "that which reaches to" or 
"arrives at," sc, some particular agent. 



94 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Various definitions of the " suitable " are given by the 
earlier Stoics. They explain it as (i) an action 
adapted to the arrangements of nature, (2) the con- 
sistent or harmonious in life and conduct. And 
here we may pause to notice that the Stoics recognised 
this quality of consistency or harmony as in some 
measure exhibited in the vital functions of irrational 
creatures, in plants and the lower animals, though 
its highest manifestation was in the rational being, 
man. Lastly, Kathekon was defined as (3) that 
which, being done, admits of reasonable justification. 
Over against the whole class of actions, suitable and 
consistent, was set the opposite class, actions which 
infringed or violated natural fitness. The instances 
of suitable actions cited have a wide range. They 
include, not only the purely selfish choice of any 
external things which are according to nature and 
have value, but also much besides, much that the 
ordinary consciousness and customary morality 
recognised as things suitable and expedient to be 
done. Thus such rules of conduct as to worship the 
gods, to honour and love one's parents, to take part 
in public life, to marry and rear children, had the 
sanction of public opinion in Greece and sometimes 
of positive law. But the meaning of the suitable and 
proper is not yet exhausted. Virtuous activity, the 
practice of prudence, justice, and courage, cannot 
possibly be excluded from the class of actions under 
consideration, and we are expressly told that every 
violation of propriety and expediency is, ipso facto, 
a sin. 

What, then, is the fundamental conception of this 
class of action, and how is the suitable related to the 
right action ? The perplexity of the problem is in- 
creased by two statements. The first is attributed 



MORAL IDEALISM 95 

to Zeno and is to the effect that the class of suitable 
actions and their opposites occupies an intermediate 
position between moral action, which is good, and 
immoral action, which is evil. 1 The inference would 
seem to be that Zeno was thinking of actions in 
themselves morally indifferent, and some of the 
instances cited by other authorities, such as to con- 
verse, to walk, to eat, to bathe, support this inference. 
The second statement comes, not from Zeno, but 
from later Stoics who treated suitable conduct as 
a generic conception, including two distinct species, 
the one morally intermediate, the other morally com- 
plete. The contrast is no longer between the suit- 
able and the right, for the completed performance 
of the suitable is declared to be the right, to be truly 
virtuous or moral conduct. At the same time the 
complete performance is declared impossible for any 
but the sage. Even if the external act is the same, 
its performance by ordinary unwise men falls short 
of the right, because it either is not done from the 
right motive or has some other inherent formal 
defect. Thus, if Zeno had intended originally that 
the term Kathekon, of which he was the inventor, 
should be restricted to acts in themselves morally in- 
different, his intention was frustrated by the subse- 
quent development of his system. The conception 
of moral progress received increasing attention, 
and Chrysippus allowed that the probationer who 
is nearing the end of his course performs all suitable 
actions on all occasions without omitting any; 
all that he needs to realise happiness is that his per- 
formance of these intermediate actions should ac- 
quire certainty, constancy, and a characteristic firm- 
ness. Chrysippus could not have written this if the 

1 Cicero, Acad. Post, I, § 37. 



96 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

sphere of Kathekon were a lower morality. On the 
contrary, it was the very material of virtuous action, 
for none could realise happiness but the truly wise 
and virtuous. It is not the external act, the season- 
able thing done, which makes the difference, but the 
motive, the intention, the virtuous disposition of the 
agent and the conscious reference of the act to the 
supreme end of a moral life. The ordinary unwise 
man is, as a rule, incapable of recognising on the spur 
of the moment what are the actions suitable in the 
various relations and contingencies of life, and will 
therefore overlook many such actions; nor will he 
perform those he recognises in the proper way, e. g., 
duties to parents. The restoration of a deposit may 
be performed by an ordinary man or by the sage. In 
both cases it is a suitable action, but the sage alone 
knows how to perform it with justice; therefore, it 
is only in his case that the performance is virtuous 
and right. Moreover, the performance of suitable 
actions by the unwise is at all times irregular, not 
to be depended on, not proof against temptation. 
From this point of view the attempt to assign a dis- 
tinct province to actions suitable and appropriate, 
which shall be neither morally good nor morally 
evil, seems to break down. The class of actions in 
question is a logical abstraction which it is useful 
to define; but as soon as we come to actual per- 
formance all actions, like all individual agents, must 
be ranked as either virtuous or vicious, moral or im- 
moral. To worship the gods, to honour one's parents, 
stock instances of things suitable, can only fail of 
being moral acts through some flaw in the perform- 
ance or from the absence of the right intention. 
When Cleanthes, at the end of his hymn, declares 
praise and honour of Zeus to be the highest privilege 



MORAL IDEALISM 97 

of all rational beings, the whole context shows that 
he regards the rendering of this praise and honour, 
not as a thing morally indifferent, but as absolutely 
right and good. 

It may be urged as an objection to this account 
of the matter that the absolute character of moral 
rules is impaired by making the suitable the ground- 
work and subject-matter of right conduct. But this 
rests on a misapprehension. No moral precepts 
can have higher sanction than conformity to nature 
or reason, which are characteristics of the suitable, 
according to the definitions above given. The earlier 
Stoics emphasised the essential relativity and con- 
ventionality of the received precepts and conceptions, 
and in so doing grossly offended against good taste 
and natural sentiment, though, unlike the Cynics, 
they never attempted to put their paradoxical con- 
clusions into practice. But they did not propose to 
supersede popular morality by a new code of rules, 
immutable and binding apart from all reference to 
the end. According to them, the end is immutable, 
the means of attaining it are not. Conformity to 
virtue and reason admits of variation, according 
to the various circumstances in which the agent 
finds himself. Over and over again it will happen 
that the same action may be at one time suitable 
and expedient and at another time, under altered 
circumstances, unsuitable and inexpedient for the 
same individual agent. All particular acts, then, are 
relative to circumstances. Of possible or conceiv- 
able actions in life, some correspond to durable, 
others to temporary relations, some are occasional, 
arising out of special circumstances, others normal, 
without regard to special circumstances. It would 
be erroneous to equate the suitable with conditional, 



98 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the right with unconditional duties, as Zeller seems 
inclined to do, for in any given case there is a line 
of action prescribed by the relation, whether durable 
or temporary, occasional or normal, and, however 
hard to determine, this course of conduct, as being 
conformable to reason, is absolutely and uncondition- 
ally binding. 

Later Stoics, e. g., Epictetus, have a threefold di- 
vision, actions tending (i) to preservation of exis- 
tence, (2) to formation of a definite character by the 
choice of what is in accordance with nature and 
the rejection of what is contrary to nature, (3) acts 
essentially moral. In the last and highest class are 
found the duties which the unwise systematically 
ignore, such as universal, disinterested benevolence, 
renunciation of revenge, love of enemies. 

The theory of appropriate action in the guise of 
inchoate duty admits of a very special application to 
the case of suicide. That under any circumstances 
the school should have held suicide to be justifiable 
is an astonishing fact. It seems to render their 
ethical optimism illusory. But our surprise is 
diminished when we give closer attention to the 
general principles of the system and the conditions 
under which alone suicide was permitted. First 
of all, it is a tenet of the Stoics that happiness is 
independent of temporal duration. Virtue does 
not consist in doing the greatest possible number 
of good actions, but in an uninterrupted series of 
such acts. Temporal prolongation, whether in this 
life or in a life hereafter, can add no whit to happiness, 
its characteristic is seasonableness. Next we will 
cite the conditions as laid down on orthodox Stoic 
lines by Cicero, premising that death and the time 
of death are neither morally good nor morally evil, 



MORAL IDEALISM 99 

but things indifferent. "Since things morally in- 
different form the starting-point for all appropriate 
actions, it is not without reason said that they con- 
stitute the test for deciding on all our plans, and 
among them those about departure from life and 
continuance in life. When the bulk of a man's 
circumstances are in accord with nature, it is appro- 
priate for him to remain in life; when the balance is 
on the other side; or seems likely to be so, it is ap- 
propriate for such a man to quit life. This proves 
that it is sometimes appropriate for the wise man to 
quit life, though he is in possession of happiness, and 
for the fool to continue in life, though wretched. 
For the primary natural advantages, whether pros- 
perous or adverse, are submitted to the wise man's 
judgment and discrimination. They form, as it were, 
the field for the exercise of wisdom, while good and 
evil are the results of the choice. So any plan for 
continuing in life or departing from it is entirely 
to be estimated with reference to the primary natural 
advantages. For it is not virtue that keeps a man 
among the living, nor are those who are destitute of 
virtue bound to seek for death. So it is often an 
appropriate action for the wise man to turn his back 
on life, though enjoying happiness to the full, if he 
can do it seasonably, that is, consistently with a life 
in harmony with nature. Wisdom herself enjoins 
upon the wise man that he should leave her if need 
require. Thus, inasmuch as vice has not the effect 
of affording a motive for suicide, it is plain that the 
appropriate course even for the unwise, who are, 
ipso facto, wretched, is to continue in life if they are 
surrounded by circumstances the majority of which 
are in accord with nature. And seeing that the 
unwise man, whether he quits life or continues in it, 



100 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

is equally wretched, and long duration does not make 
life any more for him a matter to be avoided, it is 
not without reason maintained that men who can 
enjoy a preponderance of things in accord with 
nature must continue in life." * 

This passage leaves the decision to each man's 
judgment, on a review of his external circumstances. 
The door is open; no one compels him to stay. 
Otherwise it could not be claimed for the sage that he 
was independent of external things. But later Stoics, 
who treat more fully of this subject, lessened con- 
siderably the freedom of choice, while at the same 
time they emphasised one situation in which the duty 
is imperative. This is often expressed by the mili- 
tary metaphor. The suicide acts in obedience to 
the call of God. How can we recognise this call ? 
Solely by reason, not by a supernatural sign or in- 
ward admonition. When a life in accordance with 
nature is no longer possible, when we have no means 
to life, when we can only live by loss of personal 
honour or through dereliction of duty, then we 
must obey the call and go. Under such circum- 
stances to remain in life is an act of cowardice as 
heinous as if we should shrink from death for country 
or friend; nay, more, it would render all our sur- 
viving life useless. "He who by living is of use to 
many ought not to choose to die," says Musonius, 
"unless by death he can be of use to more." 2 But 
the later Stoics fully recognised that suicide might 
be an immoral act if, for example, it proceeded from 
rashness, obstinancy, vanity, love of glory, ignorance 
of social duties. The end of Peregrinus, as related 
by Lucian, was clearly prompted by vanity and self- 

1 Cicero, De Finibus, III, §§ 60, 61. 

2 Stobeeus, Florilegium, VII, 25. 



MORAL IDEALISM 101 

advertisement. Seneca allowed the infirmities of 
old age, incurable disease, and a weakening of the 
powers of the mind to be satisfactory reasons for 
taking leave of life, but Epictetus reduced within very 
narrow limits the bodily circumstances which justify 
suicide. He would probably have admitted that 
it was foolish to bear unnecessary pains, but, as 
according to him, sickness forms a natural constit- 
uent of human life, disease in itself cannot furnish 
a moral ground for quitting it. Banishment under 
very oppressive circumstances might serve as an 
excuse, but isolation is in itself no bar to happiness. 
Moreover, he is earnest in recommending all pos- 
sible effort to support life; at the worst, he says, 
you can wait till you die of hunger. The idea 
of a stain to personal honour, which in one instance, 
the death of an athlete, 1 Epictetus allows to be a valid 
justification, is not clearly defined and admits of 
dangerous extension, for, though nothing of the kind 
can touch the soul, yet quite trivial insults, e. g., the 
loss of his beard by a philosopher, 2 might come under 
this head. Besides, personal honour and dignity 
vary with the individual, and, though suicide for 
Cato was glorious, that of another man under the 
same circumstances might not have been so. The 
casuistry on the subject is necessarily concerned with 
the action of good men, whether already wise or on 
the road to wisdom. What the unwise do in their 
unwisdom is a matter of less moment. This much 
is certain; that, so far from calling forth moral repro- 
bation, suicide would be for them a consistent end 
to an immoral career. Here the reader of Scott will 
recall the answer received by Dugald Dalgetty from 

1 Arrian, Dissertations, I, 2, 26. 

2 lb., I, 16, 9. 



102 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

his compatriot of the Scottish convent in Wiirtzburg, 
whom he consulted upon a point of conscience. 

It has already been said that the Stoics dwelt upon 
the activity and energy of the virtuous life, and in- 
deed in their whole psychology took little account 
of the element of feeling. This becomes still more 
apparent when we approach the subject of emotion. 
There are here four classes of feelings to be con- 
sidered: (i) morbid and vicious emotion, which can 
only exist in rational beings, children and brutes 
being exempt from it; (2) rational emotion, con- 
fined to the sage; (3) intermediate states of feeling, 
natural and good, or at any rate inevitable, but in 
all cases involuntary, not resting on free self-de- 
termination; (4) sensuous physical feeling, necessary 
and involuntary. This fourth class, as belonging to 
the body, is opposed to all the other three, which are 
mental states. As to the first class, it is matter of 
common knowledge that the Stoics declared war 
against the passions of mankind, which they con- 
demned as irrational, and therefore vicious and sin- 
ful. The wise man who is the embodiment of reason 
is exempt from vicious emotion, as from all the weak- 
nesses of ordinary humanity, and this picture of the 
passionless sage has always caught the popular 
imagination. As we shall see, there is one-sided 
exaggeration in the picture. If vicious emotion is 
uprooted, there is still room for rational joy and satis- 
faction, rational desire, rational fear, so that the 
sage is anything but devoid of all feeling. But it 
is true that neither the virtuous emotion of the sage, 
nor the vicious passions of ordinary men are con- 
ceived as simply states of feeling. The Stoic psy- 
chology in its premature effort at unification does 
not separate clearly will from feeling or either ele- 



MORAL IDEALISM 103 

ment from intellect. In impulse (Horme), whether 
rational in man or instinctive in brutes, the voli- 
tional side predominates. But in the four great 
classes of vicious emotion, pain and pleasure, which 
relate to the present, desire and fear, which relate 
to the future, the element of feeling, of excessive 
mental excitement, is more apparent than the ele- 
ment of will. Every impulse implies a presenta- 
tion to sense or thought, and the impulse or move- 
ment of soul toward a thing or away from it is 
conditioned by an act of mental assent, a judgment 
that the object presented is of a certain character. 
If it be judged good, it excites the hope of its attain- 
ment and the fear of missing it; if evil, feelings of 
an opposite nature. In a rational being the judg- 
ment, and therefore the resulting impulse, is the 
work of the mind (Hegemonikon). When, therefore, 
ordinary men give way to the passions of pain or fear, 
their reason, the central governing principle of their 
soul has, in the very act of giving way, pronounced 
that which causes the pain or fear to be evil; and 
similarly, the passions of pleasure and desire in- 
volve a judgment that the objects which inspire 
them are good. If such judgments are erroneous, 
as experience shows they often are, the consequent 
impulse and state of feeling are vicious and sinful. 
In other words, the Stoics admit that reason can be 
perverted. At the same time they do not consider 
emotions to be nothing but judgments; they regard 
them as caused by judgments of a particular kind, 
followed by particular mental phenomena. They are 
called judgments because the real cause is the essence 
of a thing. But they did not separate the judgment 
from the attendant phenomena; they absorbed the 
pathological side in the judgment and made the 



104 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

former the immediate result of the latter. Besides, 
the error in this particular kind of judgment is not 
purely intellectual, for instruction and reproof do 
not make the victim of the error desist from his 
passion. For the particular species of judgment, 
belief, or opinion which generates emotion the Stoics 
employed a technical term, Doxa Prosphatos (opinio 
recens, to be distinguished from opinio repentina *), 
which is explained to mean an opinion that is fresh, 
vigorous, and forcible, calculated to upset the equilib- 
rium of the reason. 2 The disturbance in any case 
is voluntary and self-incurred. 

Every event is determined by natural necessity, 
but in the moment of judging the rational being is 
free to obey reason or to disobey it. The strength 
and tension of his soul, in the last resort, alone decides 
what he will do. An impulse may be rational in the 
sense that it proceeds from a rational being, and 
yet in another sense irrational because this being 
does not exercise his reason or exercises it amiss. 
To maintain, with Socrates and the Stoics, that 
virtue is essentially knowledge brings us face to face 
with two alternatives: either vice is involuntary, as 
Socrates held, or ignorance is voluntary. The 
Stoics certainly held that all forms of vicious emo- 

1 Cicero, Tusculans, III, 75. 

2 Galen (De Hippocrat. et Plat, decretis, V, p. 416, Kiihn) follows the 
heterodox Stoic Posidonius in the opposite view, which interprets the 
technical term Prosphatos as referring not to the judgment itself, but 
to good or evil wrongly opined, and gives it an exclusively temporal 
meaning, "sudden" or "closely imminent." But events are in them- 
selves indifferent, neither morally good nor morally evil, and nothing 
of this class can be the cause of an emotion which is vicious and sinful. 
It is not the unforeseenness of an event that is the cause of an emotion, 
nor are we better able to bear the event by dwelling upon it beforehand; 
the only real remedy against vicious emotion is to acquire right views 
respecting what is good, evil, and morally indifferent. Cf. Cicero, 
Tusculans, III, 55. 



MORAL IDEALISM 105 

tion are voluntary. The morbid and disorderly 
state of the soul in anger or fear rests on an erroneous 
judgment as to what is to be sought or shunned, and 
this error might have been avoided if the man had 
chosen to exercise his reason. No doubt it depended 
on the innate force and firmness of a man's soul 
whether his reason was thus effectually exercised; 
but if the act thus proceeded from the man himself, 
and not from any external cause, he must be held 
responsible. The specific definitions of pleasure 
as irrational elation and of pain as irrational de- 
pression, to which those of desire and fear can be 
assimilated, show by the materialistic terms em- 
ployed that we have here another application of 
the theory of tension in the primary substance of 
the soul, just as virtue is sometimes defined by 
strength, force, proper tension in the substance of 
the material soul. 

Here we may notice a point of divergence from the 
ethics of all those philosophers who, like Plato and 
Aristotle, admit a non-rational part or faculty in the 
soul. According to the latter, some part or mani- 
festation of virtue consists in the due regulation by the 
reason of the non-rational impulses, which are them- 
selves normal and natural products of the non-rational 
element of soul. Orthodox Stoics deny the existence 
of any non-rational part of the soul. They attribute 
irrational impulses or instincts, not to an irrational 
faculty in the soul, but to the self-perversion of the 
reason, which can act as well contrary to as accord- 
ing to nature, and they call upon reason, not merely 
to conquer and check these propensities, but to ex- 
tirpate them altogether. 

The confusion of processes of intellect and vo- 
lition with states of feeling is obvious when we con- 



106 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

sider the four ways in which morbid or vicious 
emotion was defined. In two of these, (a) a move- 
ment of soul contrary to reason and contrary to 
nature, and (h) a false or erroneous opinion and 
judgment by the rational soul, stress is laid on the 
intellectual side, since a judgment no less than an 
impulse is a movement of soul. Hence the more 
precise definition is (V) impulse in excess, with 
which agree the separate definitions (d) of vicious 
desire as an irrational appetency, of fear as an ir- 
rational avoidance, of pleasure as an irrational 
elation, and of pain as an irrational depression. 
Clearly the irrational character of the impulse is 
shown in its excess. Violent and morbid excitement, 
betraying a feverish or inflamed state of mind, pre- 
dominates, at any rate, in pleasure and pain, though 
the latent judgments "This is a good" and "That is 
an evil" are even then by no means excluded. Er- 
roneous judgment is the cause, morbid excitement, 
mental elation, and mental depression concomitant 
effects which necessarily attend upon the error; in 
them the self-perversion of reason manifests itself. 
In the Stoic conception the three factors, judgment, 
impulse, feeling, are inextricably blended. To judge 
death to be an evil, to endeavour to shun it, to be 
morbidly depressed at the thought of it, are but 
phases and aspects of the one vicious emotion, the 
fear of death, which, however defined, necessarily 
involves them all. Similarly avarice involves an 
intellectual judgment that money is the true good, 
a volitional impulse to obtain it, and a morbid, 
inordinate delight in hoarding it. In anger, again, 
the three elements are the belief that my neighbour 
has done me evil (which of course, on Stoic princi- 
ples, is out of his power, as I can be injured by 



MORAL IDEALISM 107 

nothing external, but only by myself in vice or sin), 
the impulse to avenge this evil, and the morbid 
emotional excitement of a painful nature which 
accompanies the impulse. So, too, with pity. 
Here the erroneous belief is that our neighbour's 
external calamities are real evils, while the impulse 
to wish the course of external events other than it is 
ordained, is bound up with a feeling of pain and an- 
noyance that things are as they are. The Stoic did 
what he could to relieve the misfortunes of others, 
but the indulgence of sentimental pity or grief was 
incompatible with his cheery optimism and faith 
in Providence. 

Let us now turn to the second class, that of rational 
emotion. The Stoic temper does not imply absolute 
freedom from all emotion, but only from irrational 
mental storms. The sage is not hard and unfeeling, 
like a block of marble. He is subject to the normal 
feelings which are necessarily bound up with rational 
conduct and the right theory of life. These are as 
voluntary as the vicious emotions. To the false 
fear of future calamities corresponds in his case a 
godly fear or circumspection, a conscientiousness 
and wariness in guarding against moral failings. 
He has no other fear, for sin and vice are the only 
evils he can dread. Closely allied to this is the feeling 
of shame which shrinks from moral disgrace and 
just blame. So, too, his rational will, which is al- 
ways directed to moral good, is the counterpart of 
vicious desire prompted by fancied goods. Under 
this head come goodwill, affection, and love to our 
neighbour, which is purely disinterested, not for our 
own sake but for his. This feeling inspires to 
social service and universal philanthropy. Even 
personal affection is not forbidden to the sage, but 



108 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the feeling is excited, not by sensuous beauty alone, 
but by the capacity for virtue. In rational fear and 
rational desire, though they are mainly volitional 
processes, the element of feeling is present; and this 
is still more true of rational joy or satisfaction, which 
is the counterpart in the sage of vicious pleasure in 
the unwise. Rational fear, rational will, rational 
joy are the only forms of rational emotion. It fully 
accords with Stoic optimism that there should be no 
counterpart in the sage, to the mental pain, the grief 
and sorrow, the envy and hatred of the unwise. 
Submission to the course of events is attended by 
moral elation, by cheerfulness and confidence. 
The road to freedom, the only escape from slavery, 
is joy resting on a clear knowledge of man's nature 
and destiny. This joy and confidence must be 
permanent and lasting, at any rate in the sage; the 
constancy of his joy is one mark of his perfect well- 
being. The highest ideal is an inner harmony of 
the soul, which is necessarily conjoined with feelings 
of joy, contentment, and exaltation, and shows itself, 
not only in the whole nature and deportment, but 
even externally in the countenance. This joy is re- 
lated to virtue as an inseparable concomitant; it 
stands so near to the essence of virtue that it is not 
only natural but in itself a good. 

Thus far emotion has been described as of two 
kinds, the one vicious and morbid, the violent, 
incalculable, and ever-shifting gusts of passion which 
overtake the unwise, the other the constant, measured, 
equable feelings which rest on rational knowledge 
and rational self-determination. But this is not an 
exhaustive classification of feeling. There are states 
which are neither the one nor the other, natural 
affection and joy, which arise involuntarily and 



MORAL IDEALISM 109 

without conscious activity of the reason. Thus, 
affection for blood relations is natural and good, but 
arises without man's free-will, and unless and until 
it becomes goodwill and benevolence it has no pow- 
er or constancy. Sexual love would at first sight an- 
swer to this description, though Seneca condemns 
it as madness, insana amicitia. 1 The attitude of 
the school to friendship is unsatisfactory. True 
friendship, they hold, can only exist between the 
wise. It is thereby robbed of its peculiar significance 
as a liking resting on personal sympathy. For, if 
friendship only exists between wise men, and these 
wise men are only made friends by reason and virtue, 
and all of them are friends in an equal degree, friend- 
ship is really destroyed. It is dissolved partly into 
universal philanthropy, partly into the intellectual 
communion and relation between the wise or, at any 
rate, the earnest strivers after wisdom. In the same 
intermediate class of emotions room must be found 
for pleasure in companionship or sociability, and for 
love of nature, of beauty, of knowledge. Nor could 
the severance of rational and permitted emotions from 
such as are morbid and vicious be completely carried 
out in practice when we extend our view to those in a 
state of progress or probation. They are bound to 
feel pain, grief, sorrow, and shame for their own 
faults in the moment of repentance, and sometimes 
also shame for the faults of others. Even Chrysip- 
pus allowed that there were gradations of emotion, 
and that some of them, though they hurt us, do not 
make us worse. Plutarch objects that the Stoics, after 
banishing emotions, bring them back under another 
name. "If, being convicted by tears and trembling 
and change of colour, they talk of stings and contrac- 

1 Seneca Epistulce, g, § n. 



110 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

tions, this is merely sophistry." * Zeno, too, spoke of 
the wise man exhibiting involuntary signs of anger, 
the scar remaining after the wound has healed. 2 

Lastly, there is sensuous bodily feeling, which the 
Stoics ascribed to an internal sense, an inner touch. 
Strictly speaking, as emotion resides in the mind and 
is voluntary self-determination of the reason, a 
bodily feeling which is involuntary is not emotion in 
the technical sense at all, being neither morally evil 
nor morally good, but a thing indifferent. It is 
unfortunate, then, that the same term pleasure 
should be employed in two distinct senses for this 
indifferent bodily feeling and also for the irrational 
elation of soul which has the bodily feeling for its 
cause and object. The reprehensible pleasure which 
the Stoics denounced and sought to extirpate was 
the mental state of elation at the presence of this 
physical feeling, which implies the erroneous belief 
that it is a good. The wise man will be subject, like 
other men, to bodily pleasure and pain, but he will 
never mistake bodily pleasure for real good or bodily 
pain for real evil, and consequently he will never 
be betrayed into that mental elation at the one and 
mental depression, grief, and sorrow at the other in 
which the vicious emotions of pleasure and pain con- 
sist. Even in the worst bodily agonies his soul is 
invulnerable. Later Stoics use the term flesh to 
distinguish the bodily feeling from the mental emo- 
tion. Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus agree that the 
gentle movement of the flesh does not influence the 
inmost spiritual nature of man. What, then, is 
the moral value of the bodily feeling ? The school 
was agreed as against Epicurus that pleasure was 
in this sense not the good and pain in this sense not 

1 Plutarch, Virt. Mor., c. 9. 2 Seneca, De Ira, I, 16, 7. 



MORAL IDEALISM 111 

the evil; both were included in the class of things 
morally indifferent. But the precise position of 
pleasure and pain in the class was debated. It has 
even been inferred that pain (more properly, toil and 
physical hardship) was regarded as entitled to pref- 
erence over pleasure. 1 On the other hand the phys- 
ical feeling of pleasure as distinct from the mental 
excitement it engenders was sometimes defined as a 
concomitant of certain natural wants. Thus, when 
we satisfy hunger and thirst, or warm our chilled 
limbs, the physical feeling is no part of the benefit 
and is so far unnecessary, and yet it is an invaria- 
ble addition. If it were possible to quench thirst 
without pleasure, pleasure would have no raison 
d'etre. We could get on just as well without it. 
Epictetus calls it an external appendage, and says 
that if it were away man's nature would be un- 
altered. It might have been thought that this in- 
variable concomitance would have been regarded as 
proof of divine disposition, as part of the economy of 
nature. That the school should have held pleasure 
to be an invariable concomitant of natural wants and 
yet have refused to call it natural is a remarkable in- 
consistency, doubtless due to the pressure of con- 
troversy with Epicurus. Here, however, they seem 
to have stopped. "Not according to nature" is not 
identical with "contrary to nature." It cannot be 
taken as proved that physical pleasure was ever ex- 
pressly declared to be unnatural. Sextus impartially 
sums up Stoic opinion in these words: "The Stoics 
hold pleasure to be a thing indifferent and not prefer- 
red in that class; Cleanthes held that it is not accord- 
ing to nature, any more than a wig or rouge, and 
has no value in life; Archedemus admitted it to be 

1 Stobaeus, Eclogue, II, 58, 3. 



112 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

according to nature in precisely the same sense as the 
hairs which grow in the armpits, but denied that 
it had value; Panaetius distinguished between pleas- 
ures according to nature and pleasures contrary to 
nature." ' It must be remembered that Panaetius 
was on many points heterodox, and that his prede- 
cessor Archedemus showed the same tendency to 
eclecticism. 

It will be seen that the relation of joy to virtue is 
reproduced in the relation of physical pleasure to 
natural necessities. This relation of an invariable 
concomitant to activity at once recalls the conception 
of Aristotle who, in the Nicomachean Ethics, similarly 
defined pleasure as not the end and motive of our 
actions, but only a necessary concomitant of activity 
according to nature, the natural perfection of every 
activity and, as such, the immediate outcome of the 
perfected activity. 2 What Aristotle asserted of pleas- 
ure in general the Stoics restrict to the moral satisfac- 
tion which attends upon virtue alone, the joy and 
confidence which they dissociated both from the phys- 
ical feeling and from the morbid emotion of pleasure. 

Each of the six heads above mentioned has now 
been passed under review. Something has been said 
of impulse, end, virtue, the classification of objects, 
the classification of actions, and the varieties of emo- 
tion. Sometimes from lack of material, sometimes 
from the nature of the subject, it is impossible to 
treat these topics adequately, and there are many per- 
plexing problems, problems of which, under the 
circumstances, we can expect no more than a pro- 
visional solution. But, such as it is, the sketch of 
Stoic ethical theory is now complete. 

1 Sextus Emp., XI, 73. 

2 Nicomachean Ethics, X, c. 4, especially, 11 74, b. 33. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 

A system of philosophy, in order to live and thrive, 
must win adherents. However reasonable its tenets, 
they cannot find acceptance until they have been 
presented to the notice of mankind. Some zeal must 
be shown in expounding them, since the competition 
of ideas for supremacy in the spiritual world is no 
less keen than the conflict between the opposing 
interests of individual men and peoples. Fortunately 
we are in a position to see how Stoicism was incul- 
cated — we might almost say, preached — under the 
Roman empire in the first two centuries of the Chris- 
tian era. Numerous treatises and epistles of Seneca 
have survived; the discourses and manual of Epic- 
tetus are preserved to us in the lecture notes taken 
down by his disciple Arrian; lastly, we still have 
the meditations of the emperor Marcus Aurelius 
Antoninus, written primarily for his own admonition 
and consolation, as is sufficiently clear from the gen- 
uine title of his work, Marcus Aurelius To Himself. 
Professional teachers like Epictetus and his master 
Musonius Rufus devoted their whole lives to the 
task of instructing all who were willing to hear them, 
but outside this inner circle there were many men 
of high position and distinction in imperial Rome, 
men like Paetus Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus, who 

113 



114 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

took part in the philosophic propaganda and were 
prepared to seal the testimony of their lives with their 
blood. 

From the nature of the case the teacher has two 
main tasks. He must first lay hold on those who 
have hitherto been indifferent to philosophy and then, 
when they have been roused and awakened, he 
must guide them on the painful path of progress 
toward virtue. A similar distinction has been made 
by the Christian preachers of every age. Some- 
times they address the world, i. e., the unconverted, at 
other times the Church, i. e. y the converted. Epic- 
tetus makes his appeal in the first instance to the 
natural capacity for virtue in every man. " Have you 
not received," he asks, "faculties by which you will 
be able to bear all that happens, such faculties as 
magnanimity, courage, endurance ? And yet God 
has not only given us these faculties, but with truly 
regal and paternal goodness He has given them free 
from hinderance, subject to no compulsion, unim- 
peded, and has put them entirely in our power. 
You have received these powers free and as your 
own, but you do not use them." 1 "God has made 
all men to be happy, to be steadfast. To this end 
He has furnished the means, some things to each 
person as his own and other things not as his own; 
some things subject to hinderance and compulsion 
and deprivation; and these things are not a man's 
own; but the things which are subject to no hinder- 
ances are his own; and the nature of good and evil, 
as became His paternal_care and protection, He 
has made our own." 2 "What, then, is a man's 
nature ? To bite, to kick, to throw into prison, and 

1 Arrian, Discourses oj Epictetus, I, 6, 28 sq., 42 sq. 

2 lb., Ill, 24, 3- 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 115 

to behead ? No, but to do good, to co-operate with 
others, to wish them well." * f "What is human 
excellence?" asks Epictetus of one of his hearers, 
and proceeds: "Observe whom you yourself praise 
when you praise without partiality ? Do you praise 
the just or the unjust, the moderate or the immoder- 
ate, the temperate or the intemperate?" 2 Man, 
then, has by nature the capacity to find out and know 
the truth. He has on the one hand the moral in- 
tuitions technically known as preconceptions. On 
the other hand he has reason and intellect in order 
to develop these preconceptions and convert them 
by the aid of experience into useful standards for 
the judgment of reality. Even when undeveloped, 
preconceptions fit a man for the vague apprehension 
of moral truth. "There are certain things which 
men who are not altogether perverted see by the 
common notions which all possess." 3 Epictetus 
credits all men with modesty and a sense of shame. 
"Nature has given to me modesty, and I blush much 
when I think of saying anything base." 4 This sense 
of shame, however, can be hardened and deadened. 5 
To be sure, preconceptions are in themselves mere 
germs which are brought to maturity, either by re- 
flection and meditation or by instruction and teach- 
ing. Socrates and Zeno show how man can arrive 
unaided at moral truth; but the mass of men grow 
up with perverted views, so that in their case in- 
struction is necessary. With the true instinct of a 
teacher Epictetus tries to do justice to both facts, 
that virtue is essentially simple and resides in man's 
own nature, and yet at the same time, that it is only 
to be attained by continual toil, efFort, and self- 

1 Arrian, IV, i, 122. 2 lb., Ill, 1, 8. 

» lb., Ill, 6, 8. 4 lb., Fragment 52. 5 lb., I, 5. 



116 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

discipline. It is a pedagogic device to present 
morality to the pupil, not as something abnormal, 
but as something close at hand, something which he 
has really himself willed and often unconsciously 
practised, Philosophy is thus a means to a deeper 
knowledge of that with which all men are already 
familiar even without special instruction. Ordinary 
men are inconsistent. Some things they judge dis- 
graceful; other things no less shameful they wrongly 
refuse to term so. Such a partial or superficial 
virtue is of no great value. It is no true virtue, 
since it does not rest on a right view of life. Never- 
theless, it is a starting-point for moral instruction. 
In arguing against the Epicureans, Epictetus urges 
that their conduct is better than their principles. 
They are like their master, teaching what is bad, 
practising what is good. 1 "Epicurus disowned all 
manly offices, those of a father of a family, of a 
citizen, of a friend; but he did not, for he could 
not, disown the instincts of human nature any more 
than the lazy Academics can cast away or blind their 
own senses, though they have tried with all their 
might to do it. What a shame it is when a man has 
received from nature measures and rules for the 
knowing of truth and does not strive to add to these 
measures and rules and to improve them, but, just 
the contrary, endeavours to take away and destroy 
whatever enables us to discern the truth." 2 

Seneca is completely in agreement on this point. 
The capacity for virtue is found in all, though in 
some to a greater degree than others. Even in the 
bad, this natural endowment is not extinct, though 
weighed down and obscured. 3 All alike, even the 
most gifted, need philosophic instruction, if this 

1 Arrian, III, 7, 18. 2 lb., Ill, 20, 20. 3 Seneca, Ep., 94, 31. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 117 

capacity is to be fully developed. 1 In practice 
Epictetus treats sin as a fact needing no explanation, 
as an infatuation which can be removed by instruc- 
tion. He appeals to the sinner to will to be instructed 
and makes this the really decisive factor in con- 
version. No one sins of his own free-will; you 
have only to will and you are good. "How is this 
to be done?" he asks. "How is the victory over 
such passions as anger, lust, and avarice to be ob- 
tained ?" "Will at length to win your own ap- 
proval, will to appear beautiful to God, desire to 
dwell in purity with your own pure self and with 
God." 2 "Be well assured that nothing is more 
tractable than the human soul. You must exercise 
your will and the thing is done, it is set right; as 
on the other hand relax your vigilance and all is 
lost, for from within comes ruin and from within 
comes help. Then you say, What good do I gain ? 
And what greater good do you seek than this ? 
From a shameless man you will become modest; 
from a disorderly man you will become orderly; 
from a faithless man, faithful; from a man of un- 
bridled habits, sober." 3 It has already been stated 
that to the Stoics sin, like truth and right, admits of 
no degrees. The paradox that all sins are equal 
means that a perverted direction of the will is mani- 
fest in every sin, however trivial. The sins may 
differ in the objects to which they refer, but not from 
the point of view of the moral judgment. They all 
come from the same source, and in all the judgment 
is the same, i. <?., it is perverse. If sin is transgres- 
sion, how far the transgressor goes astray makes no 
difference to the guilt, which consists in transgressing 

1 lb., 95, 36; 94, 32; 90, 44. a Arrian, II, 18, 19. 

3 lb., IV, 9, 16. 



118 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

bounds at all. The intention, the pleasure in the 
contemplation of an action is just as heinous as the 
actual deed, and the omission of the good is equally 
sinful with the doing of the bad. In the task of 
instruction the pupil must co-operate with his teacher; 
he must make the instruction his own. As Epic- 
tetus says, "This only is given to you, to convince 
yourself; and yet you have not convinced yourself. 
Then I ask you, Do you attempt to persuade other 
men ? And who has lived so long with you as you 
with yourself? And who has so much power of con- 
vincing you as you have of convincing yourself? 
And who is better disposed and nearer to you than 
you are to yourself? How, then, have you not yet 
convinced yourself in order to learn ?" * "Now v/ill 
you not help yourself? And how much easier is 
this help ? There is no need to kill or imprison 
any man or to treat him with contumely or to go 
into the law courts. You must just talk to yourself. 
You will be most easily persuaded; no one has more 
power to persuade you than yourself." 2 All this pre- 
supposes the existence of good impulses in the man, 
to which the evil impulses of his previous life yield 
easily. 

The conception of progress dominates the writings 
of Seneca and Epictetus. Seneca in one passage 
declares that this progress on the way to virtue, which 
it is the aim of all instruction to promote, is virtue 
itself. The road cannot be dissevered from the 
goal. 3 The first step is the recognition of sin, ig- 
norance, and infatuation. This is accompanied 
by remorse, which, in itself a vicious, reprehensible 
emotion, is in the beginner relatively necessary and 

1 Arrian, IV, 6, 5. 2 lb., IV, 9, 13. 

3 Seneca, Ep., 89, 8: "ad virtutem venitur per ipsam." 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 119 

wholesome. He must rid himself of his darkness, 
and acquire a correct standard for judging good and 
evil. But this is slow work and needs not only in- 
struction, but also meditation and self-discipline. 
Daily self-examination is prescribed, 1 and watchful- 
ness against evil inclinations and temptations to 
sin. 2 Every failure strengthens the evil habit. 3 
At the same time failures and backslidings should 
be no ground for discouragement. 4 Persevere, says 
Epictetus, hold aloof from old companions, and 
avoid occupations and pleasures which you are not 
yet strong enough to resist. 5 Avoid even what is 
permitted, if it tend to weaken your new convictions. 
Lastly, be ever on your guard against the evil self 
that lurks within. 6 Exercise your will negatively 
by aversion only, and let desire fall for the present 
into abeyance. 7 Behave like a convalescent in dread 
of a relapse. 8 Set Socrates or Zeno or Cleanthes 
before you, and measure your conduct by that 
standard. 9 This is a period of wavering and 
wandering, yet it differs from the old evil life and it 
will give place to stronger convictions. If the con- 
victions have once taken root, the worst is over, and 
the convert will grow stronger and make progress. 
It is impossible to glance at these and similar pre- 
cepts without being struck by the analogy, partially 
in substance and still more in method, between the 
moral teaching of Stoicism and that of the New 
Testament. Both Stoics and Christians regard 
the life of progress as one continual struggle in which 
nothing short of the utmost effort, vigilance, and in- 

1 Arrian, IV, 6, 34. z lb., Ill, 16, 15. * lb., II, 18, 4. 

4 lb., IV, 19, 16. 5 Ib., IV, 2, 1; III, 12, 12. 

6 lb., Encheiridion, 48. ' lb., I, 4, 1; Encheiridion, 2. 

8 lb., Ill, 13, 21; Encheiridion, 48. 9 lb., Ill, 23, 32. 



120 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

sight, conjoined with courage, patience, and en- 
durance, can insure the victory. By both the war 
is waged against the same enemies, the world of ap- 
pearances without and the treacherous self within, 
and with hardly an exception the Apostle's "works 
of the flesh" and "fruits of the spirit" 1 can be identi- 
fied with the vices and virtues of the Stoics. 

Seneca acquaints us with a scheme of classification 
by which those who are in progress toward virtue 
were arranged in three classes. 2 The principle of 
division is the more or less complete eradication of 
vicious emotions. The lowest class includes those 
who have broken with some of their sins but not 
with all. Above them are ranked in the second class 
men who, dissatisfied with this inconsistency, have 
resolved to renounce evil passions in general though 
they are still liable to occasional relapses. Those 
in the highest class approximate to wisdom and per- 
fect virtue. Nor is it easy to see where they fall 
short of it. They are said to have got beyond the 
possibility of relapse but to lack confidence in 
themselves and the consciousness of their own wis- 
dom. This subtle distinction forcibly recalls the 
doctrine of "assurance" so widely maintained since 
the Reformation by various sections of evangelical 
Protestants. Upon closer examination it cannot be 
said that these distinctions are marked by any hard 
and fast line. The three classes tend to shade off 
into each other. Quite apart from the fact that the 
very idea of progress implies variation, wavering, and 
alteration, much might be said for another three- 
fold division of which there are some traces. All 
under instruction would then be divided into (i) 
converts or novices, (2) proficients, /. <?., all who 

1 Galatians, V, 19, 22. 2 Seneca, Ep., 75, 8. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 121 

are still making some progress, whatever grade 
they have reached, (3) those whose education is 
complete. 1 This last class Seneca expressly sepa- 
rates from the wise. They are in port, he says, but 
they have not yet landed. They are within sight 
of wisdom and only a stone's throw off it, but they 
are not there. 

Epictetus, who is constantly urging his hearers 
on and on, certainly makes no attempt like Seneca to 
separate them into definite classes. Instead of 
doing so, he is chiefly concerned with a course of in- 
struction and discipline which he regards as neces- 
sary for all. In this course there are three stages, 
the first relating to desire and aversion, the second 
to impulse and action, the third to judgment and 
assent. The novelty here is that a Stoic should 
separate the species desire from its genus impulse, 
under which it was ordinarily subsumed. So far 
as we know, this separation was original in Epictetus, 
and was probably dictated by practical considera- 
tions, for, though undoubtedly orthodox, he every- 
where treats the theoretical side of his system with 
great freedom. In his discourses physic, ethic, and 
logic are intermingled, according to the needs of the 
particular subject and occasion. Even the order of 
succession of his three stages serves a purely prac- 
tical and educational purpose. The first stage is 
intended to secure in the pupil a right attitude of 
mind toward external things and events. By it he 
is taught to shape desire in accordance with reason. 
The outcome is that freedom from morbid emotions, 
that tranquillity which the Stoics called apathy. 
In the second stage the mind so trained is directed 
to action. Having learned to recognise true good, 

1 Seneca, Ep., 72, 10. 



122 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

which is also his true interest, the pupil is practised 
in the performance of those duties which are incum- 
bent upon him in the various relations he sustains 
to the universe at large and to his fellow-creatures. 
He is taught how he is to act as a devout man, as a 
father, a son, a brother, a citizen, a member of the 
world-commonwealth, and not only in those relation- 
ships to which he is born, but in those upon which 
he has entered by voluntary association with others. 
The problem is, How does the right view of life 
realise itself in all these moral relationships through 
action ? Hence this second stage may be fairly de- 
scribed as dealing with the whole range of duty 
(Kathekon), duty to self, to God, to one's neighbour, 
and to mankind at large. The third stage is more 
advanced. Epictetus expressly recommends its post- 
ponement until proficiency has been attained in the 
other two. It consists mainly of such a thorough 
logical training as will insure an unerring judgment, 
a judgment which cannot be shaken by reasoning, 
and in particular by the sophisms and fallacies of 
opponents. By the first and second stages the pupil 
has been taught to make his will and his action con- 
form to certain principles, e. g., he has learned not 
to lie and why he ought not to lie. The third stage 
is intended to confirm him in these principles, to 
safeguard the reasonings on which they depend, to 
render the demonstration of them secure and im- 
pervious to assault, and to endow his every act of 
judgment and assent with unshakable firmness. 
But we will cite our author's own words: "There are 
three subjects in which a man ought to exercise him- 
self, if he would be wise and good. The first deals 
with the desires and aversions, and its object is that 
we may not fail to get what we desire and may never 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 123 

fall into that which we would fain avoid. The 
second deals with the impulses or movements toward 
things or away from things, and generally with the 
performance of what is suitable" (Kathekon). "Its 
object is that our conduct may be regular, reasonable, 
and not careless. The third deals with the elimina- 
tion of deception and rash judgment and with as- 
sent generally. Of these subjects the chief and 
most urgent is the first which deals with vicious pas- 
sions, for their sole cause is our failing to obtain 
what we desire and falling into that which we would 
fain avoid. Hence come perturbations, tumults, 
discomfitures, sorrows, lamentations, envyings, all 
of which prevent us from even hearing the voice of 
reason. The second subject is the suitable or duty. 
I ought not to be unfeeling like a statue, but I ought 
to cherish my relationships, whether natural or volun- 
tarily formed, as a pious man, as a son, as a brother, 
as a father, as a citizen. The third subject begins to 
be incumbent when some progress has been attained. 
Its aim is to make the other two secure, so that even 
in sleep, intoxication, or hypochondria we may not 
let any presentation pass untested." 1 

That the aim of the third subject or topic is not 
theoretical, but directly moral and practical, may be 
seen from the censure passed upon those who would 
engage in it before they have mastered the first and 
second. "As if all your affairs were well and secure, 
you were busy with the final subject, that of un- 
shakable firmness. But what would you make 
unshakably firm ? Cowardice, mean spirit, the 
admiration of the rich, futile desire, avoidance which 
fails of its end. These are the things about whose 
security you have been anxious." 2 The result of 

1 Arrian, III, 2. a lb., Ill, 26, 14. 



124 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

this hurrying on to the last stage before the desires 
and impulses have been properly disciplined is 
neatly satirised thus: "Therefore we lie, but the 
demonstration that we ought not to lie we have 
at our fingers' ends." * 

It is remarkable that in several passages Epictetus 
disclaims for himself any special aptitude for this, 
the most advanced stadium of instruction. He al- 
most implies that it should be left to professed 
logicians. And yet many of his discourses are taken 
from it, and he is always sound on the theoretical 
issue that without such an unswerving rectitude of 
judgment no one can reach the highest level of 
progress, or so much as approximate to the ideal of 
the wise and good. But the dialectical certainty 
which these higher logical studies promote is only 
valuable as the necessary condition for moral cer- 
tainty and infallibility. In thus separating the three 
stages of instruction, Epictetus must have had the 
needs of his pupils before his eyes. He wishes them 
to undergo from first to last a course of discipline 
(Askesis), and, though the three stages are distinct, 
it is impossible to concentrate attention exclusively, 
first upon the will and desires, later upon the im- 
pulses and actions. Nor could the pupil become 
mature in these two lower stages without acquiring 
in a great degree that unerring certainty of judg- 
ment which it is the especial object of the third 
stage to secure. Doubtless the formal separation of 
three stages was expedient, not only for the pupil, 
but also for his instructor. But the discourses of 
the master preserved to us by Arrian are not so 
arranged; indeed, in the miscellaneous character of 
their contents and the choice of themes suggested by 

1 lb., Encheiridion, 51. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 125 

trivial incidents or everyday occurrences, and in 
the absence of method and order they resemble the 
sermons of too many modern preachers. When, 
however, we come to take stock of the material so 
collected, it is obvious that Epictetus laid the great- 
est stress upon the first stage. This was the root of 
the whole matter; all subsequent improvement starts 
with this. The right attitude consists, first and 
foremost, in emancipation from evil passions. This 
is its negative side. But Epictetus insists repeatedly 
upon the positive side, the rational and permissible 
emotions, submission to the divine will, confidence as 
regards the future course of events, the peace of 
mind, the holy joy and gratitude which accompany 
the bringing of the will into harmony with reason. 
The second stage is intended to render the agent 
blameless and free from offence in all that he is 
impelled to do. It translates the inwardness of the 
reasonable will into particular resolves, which pro- 
duce a multiplicity of external actions. In a hasty 
review we shall consider what Epictetus inculcates 
respecting duties (i) to self, (2) to God, (3) to one's 
neighbour, singling out special points for emphasis 
and comparison. 

(1) The duties of personal perfection begin with 
cleanliness and proper care of the body. The 
body is the nearest object to a man, and in dealing 
with it he can show his faithfulness in little things. 
As far as possible, it must be preserved in its natural 
condition. Even in the totally uneducated (Epic- 
tetus uses this term to designate what a Christian 
teacher would call the unregenerate) some attention 
to the body is a hopeful sign, as implying something 
which the teacher can work upon. "I indeed would 
rather," says Epictetus, "that a young man, when 



126 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

first moved to philosophy, should come to me with 
his hair carefully trimmed, than with it dirty and 
rough. For then he is seen to have a certain notion 
of beauty and a love of what is becoming; and where 
he supposes it to be, there also he strives that it 
shall be. It is only necessary to show him what 
beauty is and to say, 'Young man, you seek beauty 
and you do well; you must know, then, that it springs 
up in that part of you where you have the rational 
faculty. Seek it there, where you have your im- 
pulses to strive for things and to avoid them, where 
are your desires and aversions. For this is the 
nobler part of yourself, but the poor body is by 
nature only clay; why labour about it to no pur- 
pose?'" 1 The whole discourse from which this is 
taken has for its subject cleanliness or purity. We 
see that the body is a little thing in his eyes, but the 
preconception or intuition of beauty is something 
which affords a starting-point for the teacher. He 
has esteem and sympathy for the career of the 
athlete, involving, as it must, endurance of hard- 
ship and strict discipline, and justifies the suicide 
of the mutilated Olympian victor as the act, not of 
an athlete or of a philosopher, but of a man. 2 But 
he never forgets that the athlete holds a mistaken 
view of life; all he does is for the sake of glory and 
therefore from the wrong motive. 3 Next come 
the duties of temperance, modesty, and chastity. 
That a man should be temperate is taken for granted; 
there is no need to urge men to nurture the body; 
they must rather be warned against pampering 
and surfeiting it. On one point, the use of wine, 
Stoic opinion was divided. Some condemned, others 
admitted, the use of wine beyond bare needs, and 
1 Arrian, IV, n, 25. 2 lb., I, 2, 26. 3 lb., Ill, 12, 16. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 127 

those who maintained that even in intoxication the 
sage would preserve his reason must have condoned 
even a generous or undue indulgence. Epictetus 
holds the middle position. Sobriety with him is 
on the same footing as decency and modesty. That 
he should allow any drinking beyond natural neces- 
sity must be explained by the Stoic principle of ac- 
commodating or adapting one's self to established 
custom in social intercourse. Chastity is dealt with 
in the thirty-third section of the Encheiridion. The 
demands there made, if they do not in some points 
quite satisfy the Christian standard, are far in ad- 
vance of the conventional code of the world either of 
his or of our own day. That the teacher should 
cherish a pure affection for a promising pupil capable 
of moral improvement was a survival, we may say, 
from old Greek habits and associations. In various 
passages it is recognised by Epictetus, but he does 
not call this zeal for education by the invidious 
name of love, nor does he regard it as associated 
with personal beauty in the pupil; and as to the 
purity of his regard there is absolutely no question. 
The retention of the old term love under these altered 
circumstances exposed the Stoics to the taunt that 
they loved men when at their ugliest, because desti- 
tute of moral beauty, and ceased to love them when 
by education they had attained to true beauty. 
It would be just as unfair to taunt the modern 
missionary with his enthusiastic zeal for the con- 
version of very unattractive heathen. The fruit 
of philosophy is the extirpation of the passion 
for sensual beauty and the cultivation of the love 
of moral beauty. Sexual love was, as Seneca de- 
fined it, insana amicitia, and Musonius courageously 
demands from men the same self-control as even 



128 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

in his day men demanded from women. That 
Epictetus himself was no stranger to the passion 
may be inferred from a curious remark on the love 
of philosophy: "If any one among you has been 
in love with a charming girl, he knows that what I 
say is true." * His language often reminds us of the 
sermon on the mount. 2 The subject of the fourth 
discourse of the second Book is an outspoken de- 
nunciation of an adulterer who had the audacity 
to present himself at a lecture. "How shall I con- 
sider you, man ? As a neighbour, as a friend ? 
What kind of one ? As a citizen ? Wherein shall I 
trust you ? So if you were an utensil, so worthless, 
that no one could use you, you would be pitched 
out on to the dung heaps, and no man would pick 
you up. But if, being a man, you are unable to 
fill any place which befits a man, what is to be 
done with you ? For suppose that you cannot 
hold the place of a friend, can you hold the place of a 
slave ? And who will trust you ? Must not you 
also submit to be thrown on a dung heap as a use- 
less utensil?" With this scathing rebuke compare 
St. Matthew, V, 13. 3 

The importance he attached to decency, personal 
dignity, modesty, and propriety led him to discounte- 
nance gossip and idle talk, and the novice is recom- 
mended to maintain a discreet silence in society, 
unless he can turn the conversation to serious 
themes. 4 A passive, almost quietistic demeanour 
toward the external goods of life is inculcated, quite 
distinct from any tendency to asceticism. He lays 
down no such rules about dress as Musonius did, nor 

1 Arrian, III, 5, 19. 

2 Cf. Arrian, II, 18, 15, with St. Matthew, V, 28. 

3 Cf. also Arrian, III, 7, 21; II, 8, 13. * Encheiridion, 33. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 129 

was he, like him, a vegetarian. Musonius was far 
removed from Diogenes, and Epictetus still further. 
At the same time Epictetus was too fond of de- 
nouncing as effeminate luxury whatever exceeds 
simplicity. With the luxuries he rejects all the com- 
forts of life, even a cushion, and it is odd that he 
should recommend the simplest furniture on the 
ground that anything beyond this might be a tempta- 
tion, either to ourselves or to others, to steal. Nor 
is this extreme simplicity altogether consistent with 
passages in which servants, the use of wine, and the 
enjoyment of objects of art are permitted. Be- 
sides, he is quite clear that asceticism in any form 
is only a means to an end, a discipline to secure 
moral freedom, relatively necessary, but not in itself 
an essential phase of the moral life. To personal 
example he attributes more influence than to all 
doctrine. For this reason the ideal preacher or 
missionary, whom he calls the Cynic, occupies an 
exceptional position. His extreme asceticism is 
not a pattern for general imitation, but is practised 
as an extraordinary means for the improvement of 
the masses, just as total abstinence is by some advo- 
cated to-day in the cause of social reform. Epic- 
tetus is quite convinced that we must not plume our- 
selves on moderation and abstinence, and that the 
moral life is just as possible amid external splendour 
as in poverty. Veracity is conditioned by loyalty, 
openness, and candour, which were always Stoic 
ideals. In one passage the Stoic convert is forbid- 
den to take an oath, so far as he can avoid it. 1 The 
ancient commentator, Simplicius, attributed this pro- 
hibition to religious grounds, because it dishon- 
ours God to call Him to witness for trivial things. 

1 Arrian, Encheiridion, 33. 



130 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

More probably the prohibition is founded on the 
high importance attached to veracity. If veracity 
is implicit, the oath is unnecessary, and we are re- 
minded of the usage of the Quakers with its appeal 
to the Gospel precept: "Let your Yea be Yea and 
your Nay, Nay." It is a well-worn question of 
casuistry whether the truth must under all circum- 
stances be spoken. The Stoics permitted the neces- 
sary lie, if it be for the good of our neighbours. 

Epictetus insists strongly on the dignity of labour. 
Earn your own living, he says; be independent. 
No employment is unworthy of the sage; manual 
toil is as honourable as statesmanship. A life of 
unemployed leisure is as bad as a life of ambition 
and the greedy pursuit of office. Such a pronounce- 
ment is all the more refreshing because it runs 
counter to a rooted prejudice of the Greek mind. 
Manual toil in Homer is honourable, but, as the 
Greeks advanced in civilisation during historical 
times, they came to despise both industrial and 
agricultural labour. The occupations which had once 
been consigned to slaves were no longer regarded as 
fit for free men. 1 That this prejudice was shared by 
the heterodox Stoic Panaetius is clear from Cicero's 
treatise De Officiis, and it is greatly to the credit of 
the humble slave of Hierapolis that he returned to 
the sounder views indorsed by the Semitic founder 
of his school. Economic independence, then, is 
incumbent on every one's honour. But there are 
difficulties and pitfalls even here. Wealth has its 
value in the class of things preferred. That being 

1 Even more remarkable is the trace which this prejudice has left in 
the Greek language. Thus the adjective Poneros, which originally 
meant toilsome, laborious, changed its meaning to that of bad and evil, 
or even wicked in the modern sense. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 131 

so, the duty of adding to one's wealth is clear, pro- 
vided no moral interest be sacrificed; and to squander 
money is as wrong as to squander health. The 
acquisition of riches cannot be justified by the mo- 
tive of benevolence, by the prospect of being able to 
help one's friend or one's country; for the merit of 
doing one's duty is not enhanced by large pos- 
sessions; 1 witness the widow's mite of the Gospel. 
Set not your heart on riches is the precept of Epic- 
tetus. All exertion for external things is repre- 
hensible, if the object sought is treated as an end 
in itself instead of a means to the moral life, if it be 
pursued for the sake of external success rather than 
as an outlet for mental activity. As things are, 
Epictetus recognises that the gain of wealth generally 
means the loss of modesty, fidelity, and magnanimity. 
His sentiments on the pursuit of worldly honours 
and of wealth are frankly stated in a passage of the 
Encheiridion as follows: "Let not these thoughts 
afflict you. I shall live unhonoured and be nobody 
and nowhere. For if want of honour is an evil, 
you cannot be in evil through the fault of another, 
any more than you can be involved in anything base. 
Is it then your business to obtain the rank of a magis- 
trate or to be received at a banquet ? By no means. 
How, then, can this be want of honour ? And how 
will you be nobody and nowhere, when you ought 
to be somebody in those things only which are in 
your power, in which, indeed, it is permitted to you 
to be a man of the greatest worth ? But your friends 
will be without assistance! What do you mean by 
being without assistance ? They will not receive 
money from you nor will you make them Roman 
citizens. Who, then, told you that these are among 

1 Encheiridion, 24. 



132 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the things which are in our power and not in the 
power of others ? And who can give to another what 
he has not himself? Acquire money then, your 
friends say, that we also may have something. If I 
can acquire money, and also keep myself modest and 
faithful and magnanimous, point out the way and I 
will acquire it. But if you ask me to lose the things 
which are good and my own, in order that you may 
gain the things which are not good, see how unfair 
and silly you are. Besides, which would you rather 
have, money or a faithful and modest friend ? For 
this end, then, rather help me to be such a man, and 
do not ask me to do that by which I shall lose this 
character. But my country, you say, so far as it 
depends on me, will be without my help. I ask 
again, what help do you mean ? It will not have 
porticoes or baths through you. And what does 
this mean ? For it is not furnished with shoes by 
means of a smith nor with arms by means of a 
shoemaker. But it is enough if every man fully 
discharges the work that is his own; and if you 
provided it with another citizen, faithful and modest, 
would you not be useful to it ? Yes. Then you, 
also, cannot be useless to it. What place, then, you 
say, shall I hold in the city ? Whatever you can, if 
you maintain at the same time your fidelity and 
modesty. But if when you wish to be useful to the 
state you shall lose these qualities, what profit 
could you be to it if you were made shameless and 
faithless?" 1 

(2) Since all moral action may be summed up 
in the formula "to reverence God, imitate Him and 
obey Him," the term "duty to God" must be re- 
stricted to acts of worship and religious observance. 

1 Encheiridion, 24. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 133 

"As to piety toward the gods," says Epictetus, 
"you must know that this is the chief thing, to have 
right opinions about them, to think that they exist, 
and that they administer the All well and justly; 
and. you must fix yourself in this principle, to obey 
them and to yield to them in everything which hap- 
pens, and voluntarily to follow it as being accom- 
plished by the wisest intelligence. For if you do so, 
you will never either blame the gods, nor will you 
accuse them of neglecting you. And it is not pos- 
sible for this to be done in any other way than by 
withdrawing from the things which are not in our 
power, and by placing the good and the evil in those 
things only which are in our power. He who takes 
care to desire as he ought and to avoid as he ought, 
by so doing also takes care to be pious. But to 
make libations and to sacrifice, and to offer first 
fruits according to the custom of our fathers, purely 
and not meanly nor carelessly, nor scantily, nor 
above our ability, is a thing which belongs to all 
to do." 1 

It will presently be seen how closely the Stoic con- 
ception of true piety agrees in the main with the 
views of the opposite school as laid down by Epicurus, 2 
subject, of course, to the fundamental divergence 
of opinion which must always exist between two 
schools, when one affirms and the other denies a 
moral purpose in the government of the universe. 
Epictetus insists before all things upon right convic- 
tions. He believes that some dogmas are necessary 
to religion. In the next place, the outcome of these 
views is submission to the divine will and the course 
of Providence. No one but the sage is capable 
of this; he alone knows the true value of things, 

1 Encheiridion, 31. 2 Cf. pp. 168, 172, 200, 289, 298. 



134 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

and impiety in a greater or less degree is inevitable 
in those who have not this knowledge. When these 
great results are secured, the external manifestations 
of piety follow as a matter of course, in accordance 
with the use and ritual of our fathers, i. e. y of the par- 
ticular society into which we are born, but it must 
always be with sincerity. Epictetus was no innov- 
ator. He accepted from the popular religion the 
whole of its cultus as well as divination. But cults 
and ritual are only valuable to him when they pro- 
ceed from right convictions and inward piety. So 
far from recommending compliance as a concession 
to human weakness, 1 he held that none but the wise 
man could perform the external acts properly. What- 
ever the views held by earlier Stoics, it is not true of 
Epictetus that he did not share the beliefs of the 
multitude. 2 He continually attacks the godless 
Epicureans and the Sceptics of the Academy be- 
cause, by their teaching, popular morality, patriotism 
and the love of truth were undermined. He could 
not make this a reproach against them, if he himself 
shared their views. On the contrary, like the fear- 
less, fanatical dogmatist he was, he could only ex- 
plain the stand-point of his opponents by their moral 
degeneracy. They had cast off and deadened shame, 
and therefore their philosophy was all frivolity and 
their teaching frigid subtleties. "Grateful, indeed, 
and modest are men who, if they do nothing else, 
are daily eating bread, and yet are shameless enough 
to say, We do not know if there is a Ceres or her 
daughter Proserpine or a Pluto/' 3 Such is his in- 

1 Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, c, XIII. 
2 Zeller, lb.; also Hirzel, Untersuchungen, II, p. 878, with especial 
reference to the attitude of Polybius the historian to the popular faith. 
3 Arrian, III, 20, 32. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 135 

dignant protest: could it have found expression if he 
had not shared the beliefs of the multitude ? 

But how, it may be asked, is the polytheism 
of the national faith to be reconciled with the many 
pantheistic and even monotheistic utterances so com- 
.mon in Epictetus ? It may be remarked that, though 
he uses God in the singular and gods in the plural 
indifferently, the singular predominates, and we 
may conclude that the plural form implies a single 
force, a single will, which in truth surrenders 
polytheism. Moreover, Zeus alone is eternal. He 
is the father of gods as well as men; the other deities 
are transitory. He has created them and assigned 
them their several spheres of operation. He uses 
them as ministers and co-regents. They execute 
His will and no more prejudice His omnipotence than 
the angels of Judaism and Christianity. Zeus is 
primitive substance which has produced all the 
other divinities. They are the first creation at the 
end of every cosmical epoch, and so Epictetus is 
entitled to use the plural. Zeus is omnipotent; 
there are no limits to His sovereignty. On this 
point Epictetus often recalls the Old Testament, e. g., 
Psalm CIV, Isaiah, XLV. "When asked how a 
man could be convinced that all his actions are done 
in the sight of God, he answered, Do you not think 
that all things are united in one ? I do, was the reply. 
Well, do you not think that things on earth have a 
natural agreement and union with things in heaven ? 
I do. And how else so regularly as if by God's 
command, when He bids the plants to flower, do 
they flower ? How is it that when He bids them to 
send forth shoots, they shoot; when He bids them 
to bear fruit, they bear fruit; when He bids the 
fruit to ripen, it ripens; when again He bids them 



136 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

drop their fruit, they drop it; when He bids them 
shed their leaves, they shed their leaves; and when 
He bids them fold themselves up and remain quiet 
and at rest, they remain quiet and at rest?" J The 
tendency to a monotheistic conception becomes 
clearer when the other attributes of God, omni- 
presence and omniscience, are considered. We have 
seen that God is everywhere. Because He is every- 
where no thought is hidden from Him. 2 And yet 
this spiritual being is not pronounced immaterial, 
though His substance is the finest and the purest 
ether. Physical purity, mental strength, and moral 
goodness always go together for Epictetus, as for the 
rest of his school. That pantheism should occasion- 
ally employ monotheistic expressions is not more sur- 
prising in Epictetus than in Cleanthes. 

A further objection must be stated. Since ex- 
ternal things are of secondary importance, is it not 
inconsistent to pray for them ? And, since the only 
true good is in man's own power to procure, is not 
prayer for it unnecessary ? May it not be argued in 
like manner that all acts of worship are at most sym- 
bolical ? How else except as a symbol could sheaves 
and cattle be offered to a spiritual being ? Is not a 
song of thankfulness in the heart and admiration 
of His works sufficient worship ? Seneca is very 
outspoken 3 and declares all religious observances 
futile. But the wise man will observe them in the 
interests of civil law and order, and justify them as 
symbolical expressions of a pious frame of mind. 
Seneca also holds that the gods have left some 
things in suspense to be prayed for. Prayers are 
offered, not to compel the gods to help, but to remind 

1 Arrian, I, 14, 1 sqq. 2 Ib., I, 14, 1; II, 14, 11. 

3 Epist. 41, 1; Nat. Quaest, ii. 35, 1. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 137 

them of human circumstances. This reminder has 
subjective not objective value. i^Man is his own 
accuser, his own judge, his own intercessor and 
pardoner, in foro conscientice'. But Epictetus, in 
upholding the popular faith, had the authority of 
his master, Musonius, who even recommended prayer 
for external goods. With this we may compare 
Marcus Aurelius: "An Athenian prayer, 'Rain, rain, 
dear Zeus, upon Athenian tilth and plains.' We 
should either not pray at all or else in this simple, 
noble sort." 1 Marcus Aurelius speaks of "sacrifice 
and prayer and oaths and all other observances by 
which we own the presence and the nearness of the 
gods." 2 True obedience to God, he holds, con- 
sists in obedience to His law. "Live with the gods. 
And he lives with the gods who ever presents to them 
his soul accepting their dispensations and busied 
about the will of God, even that particle of Zeus which 
Zeus gives to every man for his controller and gov- 
ernor — to wit, his mind and reason." 3 Like Seneca, 
he would have us pray chiefly for what is really good, 
for emancipation from evil passions, and the like. His 
own prayerfulness is attested by his words: "Solace 
your departure with the reflection: 'I am leaving 
a life in which my own associates, for whom I have 
so striven, prayed, and thought, themselves wish 
for my removal, their hope being that they will 
perchance gain something in freedom thereby.'" 4 

(3) It has already been said that social duties 
rest upon our relationships to others, either born 
with the individual or voluntarily entered upon by 
him. First come the family relationships. The 
day had long been past when they were open to 

1 Marcus Aurelius, V, 7. 2 lb., VI, 44. 

3 lb., V, 27. * lb., X, 36. 



138 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

serious discussion. The founders of the school 
had, indeed, raised the question whether nature 
invariably intended mankind for monogamy and 
separate family life, or whether, in a higher state, 
community of wives and children was not reason's 
more perfect way. But the question even then was 
purely theoretical and had no practical consequences. 
By the later Stoics, at any rate, the monogamic 
family was accepted and upheld as the natural 
basis of existing society. Accordingly, marriage 
and the rearing of families were encouraged as in 
strict conformity with reason. 1 Epictetus allows a 
special dispensation in the case of his ideal mis- 
sionary or Cynic, but he will remain unmarried 
solely in order that he may be unimpeded in his 
arduous task. 2 Besides insisting on the ^primary 
duty of fidelity in both husband and wife, [the later 
Stoics were much interested in the position of women. 
Musonius did not wish men and women to have the 
same occupations; but he defended the right of 
women to education, and was even anxious that 
girls should be taught philosophy. The objections 
to this proposal he met with arguments much the 
same as those at present urged by the advocates of 
female education. 3 He was, of course, thinking pri- 
marily of moral education, and he refused to allow 
that, if his principles were consistently carried out, 
r women would be taught athletics and men spinning. 
In all that concerns morality he firmly maintained 
the equality of the sexes, and his disciple, Epictetus, 
also seems to countenance the education of girls._ 
Seneca dwells with appreciation on the heroic deeds 
of women, 4 and even in his keen criticism of the 

1 Arrian, III, 7, 26. 2 lb., Ill, 22, 67. 

3 Stobaeus, Eclogce 235 sqq., 244 sqq. (W.). 4 Ad Helviam, 19, 5. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 139 

women of his own time, 1 he is anxious to uphold an 
ideal of that womanly excellence of which his mother, 
Helvia, his wife, Paulina, and Marcia, the daughter 
of Cremutius Cordus, were types. The love of 
parents for their offspring was an ordinance of 
nature, and Epictetus sarcastically observes that the 
parents of Epicurus would not have disowned him 
even if they had foreseen the principles their son 
would afterward advocate. And again he argues 
that if parental love had not been founded in nature, 
Epicurus would not have taken such pains to dis- 
suade men from marriage and family life. Epic- 
tetus requires unlimited obedience of children in all 
matters indifferent, irrespective of the character of 
the parent. Nothing short of a command to do 
something which is immoral justifies the child in 
disobeying. His conception of these elementary 
duties can be gathered from the following: "After 
this, remember that you are a son. What does this 
character promise ? To consider that everything 
which is the son's belongs to the father, to obey him 
in all things, never to blame him to another nor to 
say or do anything which does him injury, to yield 
to him in all things and give way, co-operating with 
him as far as you can. After this, know that you 
are a brother, also, and that to this character it is 
due to make concessions; to be easily persuaded, 
to speak good of your brother, never to claim in 
opposition to him any of the things which are inde- 
pendent of the will, but readily to give them up 
that you may have the larger share in what is depen- 
dent on the will. For see what a thing it is, in place 
of a lettuce, if it should so happen, or a seat, to gain 
for yourself goodness of disposition. How great is 

1 E. g., Ad Helviam, 17, 4. 



140 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the advantage." * That these were not mere copy- 
book maxims, but that under favourable circum- 
stances they bore excellent fruit, may be seen from 
the touching way in which the Stoic emperor grate- 
fully reviews all that he conceives himself to have 
owed to his father, mother, and brother. 2 

As regards civic duties, the position of the Stoics 
was peculiar. They were at once conservative and 
radical. Patriotism, they maintained, and active 
participation in public life is a duty which has its 
foundation in human nature. But the duty is con- 
ditioned by the assumption that external circum- 
stances conform to reason, which, as a matter of 
fact, they seldom do. Hence, whether they did or 
did not take part in civil affairs, they were open to 
the reproach of inconsistency. Seneca urges that 
when they draw back, it is not that they shrink 
from the trouble of political activity, but that they fear 
to lose their self-respect owing to the corruption of 
the times. No doubt the excuse was often abused, 
but it comes strangely from the minister of Nero, 
who cannot escape all responsibility for some of 
that tyrant's worst crimes. Plutarch, on the other 
hand, holds that the greater inconsistency is for the 
Stoic to engage in public affairs at all. 3 That the 
first founders of the school, Zeno, Cleanthes, and 
Chrysippus, should have taken no part in political 
life admits of easy explanation. They were foreign 
residents at Athens, and not Athenian citizens, and 
Seneca is entitled to claim for them that by their 
career as teachers they effected far greater good 
than they could have done by holding any public 
offices. ! But it is idle to deny that cosmopolitanism 

1 Arrian, II, 10, 7. 2 Marcus Aurelius, I, 2, 3, 14, 16, 17. 

3 Plutarch, De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, c. 3. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 141 

is, in the long run, incompatible with a restricted 
patriotism. The idea of a man's discharging his 
human mission only as a member of some one nation 
or state, the idea which dominated Rome, and was 
the source at once of her strength and her weakness, 
was foreign to Stoicism. The condition of existing 
states, even of the Roman empire, was so far from 
his ideal that the Stoic could not serve in any of 
them with honest enthusiasm. Besides, his depre- 
ciation of external goods hindered him from bringing 
real interest to bear on the economic and progressive 
tasks of any community. Nevertheless, though in- 
consistently, the Stoics defended patriotism and the 
duty of altruistic effort, and enjoined on magis- 
trates faithful and conscientious care for the common 
good. This duty is especially emphasised by Marcus 
Aurelius, whose example far outweighed his pre- 
cepts, for he wore himself out in the toils and labours 
of his imperial office. Epictetus holds that faithful 
service in public office is a natural instinct, which 
man can no more resist than the instinct to love and 
care for his children. Man is, by nature, adapted 
and inclined for society and the formation of fellow- 
ships and work for the common good. He himself 
would like to die while performing some noble and 
beneficent service of public utility. He thus ex- 
plains his conception of citizenship: "It is to have 
no selfish private interest, to deliberate about nothing 
as if he were detached from the rest, but to act as 
the hand or foot would do if they had reason and 
could obey the arrangements of nature, for they 
would have no desire, no impulse which had not 
reference to the whole." 1 This ideal temper made 
the Stoic a quiet and harmless citizen. ~"\ 

1 Arrian, II, 10, 4. 



142 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

War was universally condemned; it was always 
the result of blindness and infatuation. Musonius 
nearly lost his life by his courageous interposition in 
the last stage of the civil conflict between Vitellius 
and Vespasian, when he harangued the troops on 
both sides on the duty of concord, the blessings of 
peace, and the horror of war. 1 Epictetus did not 
go so far as this, but he lectured a procurator of 
Epirus for his partisanship, and for the bad example 
he set his inferiors, in very outspoken terms. 2 
Another official he boldly confronts thus: "'But/ 
said the official, 'I can throw into prison any one 
whom I please/ 'So you can do with a stone/ 
'But I can beat with rods any one I please/ 'So 
you may an ass. This is not to govern men. Gov- 
ern us as rational animals. Show us what is profit- 
able to us and we will follow it. Show us what is un- 
profitable and we will turn away from it. Make us 
imitators of yourself, as Socrates did.'" 3 Seneca pro- 
claims that the ruler's best safeguard is the love of 
his subjects. 4 As with magistrates, so with laws. 
The Stoic was irresistibly impelled to measure his 
reverence for existing laws by the degree to which 
they approximate to law universal. 

The last and highest social duties are founded on 
the most universal relation, that of the individual 
man to his fellow-men. Every human being is a 
member of a rational system, an all-embracing com- 
monwealth, the city of Zeus, the community of gods 
and men. It is to this, primarily, that he owes 
allegiance, and the isolated communities which pass 
for states are only imperfect and reduced copies of it. 
Hence, cosmopolitanism becomes philanthropy and 

1 Tacitus, History, III, 81. a Arrian, III, 4, 5. 

3 lb., Ill, 7, 32. * Seneca, De dementia, I, 19, 6. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 143 

civic duties are merged in those of humanity. Such 
a conception, besides abolishing the national dis- 
tinction between Greek and barbarian, brings us face 
to face with the institution of slavery, which has been 
in every age the main obstacle to the recognition of a 
common humanity. From the principles that the 
wise alone are free and immoral persons slaves, and 
that all external things are indifferent, it follows 
directly that the institution is indefensible. There 
can be no real difference between bond and free. 
Epictetus clearly teaches that all men have God for 
their father and are by nature brothers. , To the 
question: How can one endure such a person as 
this slave ? he replies: "Slave that you are yourself, 
will you not bear with your own brother, who has 
Zeus for his progenitor, and is like a son from the 
same seeds and of the same descent from above ? 
But if you have been put in any such higher place, 
will you immediately make yourself a tyrant ? Will 
you not remember who you are and whom you rule ? 
that they are kinsmen, that they are brethren by 
nature, that they are the offspring of Zeus ? ' But 
I have purchased them and they have not purchased 
me/ Do you see in what direction you are look- 
ing, that it is toward the earth, toward the pit, that 
it is toward these wretched laws of dead men ? But 
toward the laws of the gods you are not looking." 1 
Slavery, then, is a law of the dead. It affects the 
body alone; the mind of the slave is free. 2 No man 
can make another either slave or free. "I have con- 
sidered all these matters," says Epictetus, addressing 
an imaginary master; "no man has power over me. 
I have been made free by God; I know His com- 
mands; no man can now lead me as a slave. I have 

1 Arrian, I, 13, 5. 2 Seneca, De Beneficiis, III, 20, 1. 



144 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

a proper person to assert my freedom; I have 
proper judges. Are you not the master of my body ? 
What, then, is that to me ? Are you not the master 
of my property ? What, then, is that to me ? Are 
you not the master of my exile or of my chains ? 
Well, from all these things, and all the poor body 
itself, I depart at your bidding, when you please- 
Make trial of your power, and you will know how 
far it reaches." * Again: "Zeus has set me free; 
do you think that He intended His own son to be 
enslaved ? But you are master of my carcass; take 
it. 'So, when you approach me, you have no re- 
gard to me?' No, but I have regard to myself; 
and if you wish me to say that I have regard to you 
also, I tell you that I have the same regard to you 
that I have to my porringer." 2 Seneca often says 
the slave is capable of virtue and worthy of the 
friendship of the free. 8 He can bestow a benefit on 
his master, for the merit of the service depends upon 
the intention, not upon the external condition. 4 The 
Roman gradation of ranks: knights, freedmen, 
slaves, he maintains to be only empty names 
sprung of ambition and wrong. 5 Any one can be 
ennobled by overcoming what is low and common. 6 
In principle, then, the Stoics had surmounted sla- 
very, but they did not press forward and work for 
its complete abolition any more than the Christians 
of the first century. When the end of the world was 
deemed so close at hand, wide social changes seemed 
to the Christians unnecessary, and there was force in 
the Apostle's precept: "Wast thou called being a 
bond-servant ? care not for it; but if thou canst be- 

1 Arrian, IV, 7, 16. ' lb., I, 19, 9. 

3 Seneca, De Ben., Ill, 18, 4; Ep., 31, 11. 

4 lb., De Ben., Ill, 28, 1. 6 Seneca, Ep., 31, 11. 6 De Ben., Ill, 28. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 145 

come free, use it," i.e., slavery, "rather. For he 
that was called in the Lord, being a bond-servant, is 
the Lord's freedman; likewise, he that was called 
being free is Christ's bond-servant. Ye were bought 
with a price; become not bond-servants of men." l 
So, too, the Stoics were most anxious that the slave 
should attain to true inward freedom and escape the 
moral slavery to vice and evil passions. The ame- 
lioration of his external lot, being a thing indiffer- 
ent, was of secondary importance. No doubt many 
slaves profited directly by the humanity of Stoic 
masters, but it was long before these humane prin- 
ciples, permeating society, had the indirect conse- 
quence of gradually raising the slave to the improved 
position of the serf. This great change, which was 
not completed at the break-up of the Roman em- 
pire, is ascribed by Lecky to Stoic rather than 
Christian influences. 

But what are the duties which I owe to my fellow- 
men ? First, there are the passive duties, not to 
requite evil with evil, patiently to suffer all wrong 
and insult, and repress all movements of hate, re- 
venge, anger, and envy. "To suppose that we shall 
be easily despised by others," says Epictetus, "un- 
less in every possible way we do injury to those who 
first show us hostility, is the mark of very ignoble 
and foolish men; for this implies that inability to 
do injury is the reason why we are thought con- 
temptible, whereas, the really contemptible man is 
not he who cannot do injury but he who cannot do 
benefit." 2 The best revenge is to show ourselves 
blameless and, if possible, improve the evil-doer. 
"To take the insult coolly," says Seneca, "is in some 

1 1 Cor., 7 : 21-23. 

2 Arrian, Fragment 70 (Schweighauser). 



146 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

sort to be revenged." * Marcus Aurelius, again, 
says: "Not to do likewise is the best revenge." 2 
Epictetus does not strictly forbid the attempt to get 
legal satisfaction for our wrongs, though he dis- 
courages it by remarking that we ought to be thank- 
ful we were not worse treated, but escaped with our 
lives. 3 If we do go into court, we should be neither 
cowardly nor arrogant, neither descend to unworthy 
appeals nor irritate and challenge the judge un- 
necessarily. 4 But the same Stoics who thus de- 
manded patience under wrong refused to allow 
compassion and pardon, and stoutly opposed any 
interference with the course of justice by remission 
of penalty. Critics profess to discover an incon- 
sistency in this. But they fail to put themselves in 
the position of the Stoic; they overlook the doctrine 
of apathy. If once it be granted that no morbid 
emotion can ever be indulged by the sage, and that 
pity is morbid emotion, a form of grief or mental 
pain, it is hard to see why the sight of others' misfor- 
tunes should be an excuse for this particular form of 
vice. They were not hard-hearted, butfthey grounded 
the impulse to help and save, not upon pity, but upon 
the tie of a common humanity, the knowledge of the 
rights and duties in which all men share. The sage 
will be patient with the suffering, not because of their 
external woes, but because of their inward weakness 
and blindness. 

As with pity, so with forgiveness. The senti- 
mentalist exclaims: "How inhuman! Is not pardon 
the noblest prerogative of man ?" and falls to quoting: 
"The quality of mercy is not strained," etc. But the 
Stoic also pardons in his own way. If he is wronged 

1 De Constantia Sapientis, 17, 11. 

2 Marcus Aurelius, VI, 6. 3 Arrian, IV, 5, 9. * lb., II, 2, 17. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 147 

or insulted, he does not take it ill, does not allow him- 
self to give way to anger or resentment, but attributes 
the act to human weakness and folly. He does not 
consider that he is wronged or insulted, but thinks 
the wicked man has done the greater harm to him- 
self and has received his punishment in the loss of 
self-esteem, which always accompanies sin. 1 He is 
not concerned for his own personal honour, but only 
for the improvement of the evildoer; and if the latter 
repents and is willing to make friends, he is quite 
ready to meet him. This tolerant attitude toward 
human infirmity is abundantly illustrated by Marcus 
Aurelius. | He is always ready with excuses for oth- 
ers. "Cruel, is it not, to prevent men from push- 
ing for what looks like their own advantage ? Yet 
in a sense you forbid them that when you resent 
their going wrong. They are doubtless bent upon 
their own objects and advantage. 'Not so/ you say, 
'in reality/ Teach them so, then, and prove it, 
instead of resenting it." 2 "When any one does you 
a wrong, set yourself at once to consider what was 
the point of view, good or bad, that led him wrong. 
As soon as you perceive it you will be sorry for him, 
not surprised or angry. For your own view of good 
is either the same as his or something like in kind, 
and you will make allowance. Or, supposing your 
own view of good and bad has altered, you will find 
charity for his mistake come easier." 3 ! "Whom- 
soever you meet, say straightway to yourself: What 
are the man's principles of good and bad ? For if he 
holds such and such principles regarding pleasure 
and pain and their respective causes, about fame 
and shame, or life and death, I shall not be surprised 
or shocked at his doing such and such things; I 
1 Marcus Aurelius, IX, 4. 2 lb., VI, 27. 3 lb., VII, 26. - 



148 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

shall remember that he cannot do otherwise." * 
"When offended at a fault in some one else, divert 
your thoughts to the reflection, What is the parallel 
fault in me ? Is it attachment to money ? or pleasure ? 
or reputation ? as the case may be. Dwelling on this, 
anger forgets itself and makes way for the thought: 
'He cannot help himself; what else can he do? If 
it is not so, enable him, if you can, to help himself.'" 2 
In Epictetus, again, we find the following: "When 
any person treats you ill or speaks ill of you, remem- 
ber that he does this or says this because he thinks 
that it is his duty. It is not possible, then, for him 
to follow that which seems right to you but that 
which seems right to himself. Accordingly, if he is 
wrong in his opinion, he is the person who is hurt, 
for he is the person who has been deceived; for if a 
man shall suppose the true proposition to be false, it 
is not the proposition which is hindered but the 
man who has been deceived about it. If you proceed, 
then, from these opinions you will be mild in temper 
to him who reviles you; for say on each occasion: 
It seemed so to him." 3 

On the question of punishment, again, the line 
taken by the Stoic is intelligible and consistent. If 
he is convinced that in the interests of public order 
and of the wrong-doer himself punishment is neces- 
sary, he knows no forgiveness. He will not let the 
offender off on account of weak pity. For to remit 
the penalty under these circumstances would be to 
pronounce the original infliction of the punishment 
unjust. \ That violations of law must be punished 
was always energetically maintained by the school. 
They insisted, however, that the punishment should 

1 Marcus Aurelius, VIII, 14. 2 lb., X, 30. 

3 Arrian, Encheiridion, 42. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 149 

be dictated, not by anger, but by mature deliberation. 
It should aim at the reclamation of the offender, and, 
in order to this end, as well as to act as a sufficient 
deterrent, it should be both as mild, as speedy, and 
as certain as possible. The death penalty cuts off 
the absolutely bad as excrescences upon the body 
politicJWBut, while the Stoic refusal to pardon or 
remit penalties can be fully justified against all weak 
sentimentality, it must be allowed that they did not 
take sufficient account of the possibility of error, 
either (a) as to the guilt or innocence of the accused 
or (&) as to the extent of his guilt. From Seneca's 
treatise on Clemency it can plainly be seen that they 
strove to find the correct mean between cruel harsh- 
ness and strictness on the one hand, and weak in- 
dulgence on the other. Clemency, according to 
Seneca, is neither weak indulgence nor yet morbid 
pity. One might be tempted to object that this is a 
mere verbal quibble, and that he who makes clem- 
ency his principle acts in the same way as he who 
pardons, but from higher motives and with clearer 
insight. [Seneca's conclusion is, briefly, that perfect 
justice is also the highest and most perfect love. In 
holding such a view as this, far from being harsh, he 
was well in advance of his own time — it may be, of 
ours. 

1 Seneca is here our chief authority, especially the treatises De Ira and 
De dementia. "-Bonis nocet qui malis parcit" (Fragment 114) is the 
key-note of his remarks. In meting out punishment, regard must be had 
to mildness, as far as possible (De Ira, I, 19; De dementia, I, 2, 2; I, 
5, 1), not to the satisfaction of rage or revenge (De Ira, I, 12; I, 6; I, 
15). The mildest punishment is the most effective for reformation (De 
dementia, I, 22). The death penalty should not be unduly deferred 
(De Ben., II, 5, 1). Cicero, Pro Murena, cc. 29-31, §§, 60-66, does his 
best to ridicule the Stoics in general, and Cato in particular, for what 
he considers their impracticably rigid adherence to fixed principles on 
this matter. 



150 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

To Epictetus the active duty of benevolence and 
readiness to help others is an essential part of 
morality, the highest manifestation of rational will. 
Marcus Aurelius expresses the same thought thus: 
"Does the eye demand a recompense for seeing, or 
the feet for walking ? Just as this is the end for 
which they exist, and just as they find their reward in 
realising the law of their being, so, too, man is made 
for kindness, and whenever he does an act of kind- 
ness or otherwise helps forward the common good, 
he thereby fulfils the law of his being and comes by 
his own." * "Nature," says Seneca, "bids me be of 
use to men, no matter whether they are slave or free, 
freedmen or free-born. Wherever there is a human 
being there is room for benevolence." 2 Persistent 
kindness conquers the bad, and no one is so hard- 
hearted, so hostile to what he should value, that even 
to his own hurt he refuses to love good men. 3 We are 
required to love men genuinely, and from the heart. 4 
"Make the most of a short life," says Seneca; "let it 
be peaceful both for yourself and others. See that 
you are beloved by all while you live and regretted 
when you die." 5 This help and service was inter- 
preted to mean, not merely external aid, but the 
effort to teach, admonish, and reform others, a task 
beset with difficulties, calling for tact and even tem- 
per, and the gift of sweet reasonableness. That we 
must love the sinner and try earnestly to improve 
him is a favourite thought of the Stoic emperor. 
"It is man's special gift to love even those who fall 
into blunders; this takes effect the moment we realise 

1 Marcus Aurelius, IX, 42, s. /. a Seneca, De Vita Beata, 24, 3. 

3 lb., De Ben., VII, 31, 1. 

4 Marcus Aurelius, VII, 13; Seneca, De Ira, III, 28, 1 sg. 
6 De Ira, III, 43, 1. 



TEACHING OF THE LATER STOICS 151 

that men are our brothers, that sin is of ignorance and 
unintentional, that in a little while we shall both be 
dead, that, above all, no injury is done us; our inner 
self is not made worse than it was before." x "Use 
your moral reason to move his; show him his error, 
admonish him." 2 "If you can, set the doer right." 3 
"Men exist for one another. Teach them, then, or 
bear with them." 4 "Convert men, if you can; if 
you cannot, charity, remember, has been given you 
for this end. See! the gods, too, have charity for such, 
helping them to divers things, health, wealth, and 
reputation; so good are they. You, too, can do the 
same; who hinders you ?" 5 "If a man is mistaken, 
reason with him kindly and point out his miscon- 
ception. If you fail, blame yourself or no one." 6 
" Reverence the gods, help men." 7 In the face of 
this evidence it would be blind prejudice to deny 
that the Stoics preached philanthropy in its highest 
and noblest form. But it would be unfair to ignore 
the fact that it was not the centre of their view of life, 
as it is in Christianity, or that it lacked the force, 
warmth, and influence which a deeper conviction of 
sin and the conception of self-sacrificing love lend 
to the teaching of the New Testament. However 
willing to serve and help his fellows, the Stoic never 
forgets that vice is folly, and can hardly repress a 
smile at the human comedy, the follies, errors, and 
blunders of mankind. 

From this imperfect sketch it appears that the 
later Stoics, and especially Epictetus, in their prac- 
tical teaching adhered firmly to the principles laid 
down by Zeno. The system of morality which they 
enforced by precept and example possessed consid- 

1 Marcus Aurelius, VII, 22. 2 lb., V, 28. 3 lb., VIII, 17. 

1 lb., VIII, 59. s lb., IX, 11. 6 lb., X, 4. ' lb., X, 30. 



152 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

erable merits which no inquirer can afford to dis- 
regard. In this system happiness depends solely on 
the will, and the value of an act is estimated by the 
intention; vice or sin is misery and carries its own 
punishment with it; virtue consists, not in perform- 
ing such and such actions, but rather in the right 
view of life, the attitude in shaping the whole of 
conduct in conformity with right reason or — which 
comes to the same thing — with God's will; nothing 
external can dishonour a man, and the true nobility 
of virtue is within the reach of the slave. These and 
other kindred doctrines can all be traced to the ten- 
dency of the system to regard morality as an affair 
of the inner life — in short, to the inwardness of 
Stoicism. 



CHAPTER V 

EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 

Epicurus was an Athenian citizen and belonged to 
the deme Gargettus. Hence he is often called the 
Gargettian sage. The few simple facts and dates of 
his uneventful career as a teacher and writer are par- 
ticularly well established. He was born in the year 
341 B. C, in the lunar month Gamelion, the tenth 
day of which was kept in his honour. Probably it 
was three days earlier, on the seventh of the month, 
that he first saw the light. The Attic civil year be- 
gan, theoretically, with the summer solstice, and 
Gamelion* the seventh month, would naturally fall 
after the winter solstice, in our January. Epicurus 
was born in Samos, whither his father, Neocles, had 
gone out from Athens to settle as a colonist. His 
father bore the same name as the father of Themis- 
tocles, a fact which led Menander to compose an 
epigram comparing the achievements of their re- 
spective sons. The son of one Neocles had freed his 
country from slavery; Epicurus, the son of the 
other, from the worse bondage of superstitious folly. 
Many philosophers and founders of religion have 
aimed at emancipation, deliverance — in a word, free- 
dom. Seldom has the world seen one who went to 
the same lengths in this direction as Epicurus. In 
the extreme individualism of his ethical no less than 
of his physical doctrine, and his refusal to base the 
co-operation of his units on anything else but volun- 

153 



154 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

tary consent, he would seem to anticipate the prin- 
ciples professed by modern anarchists, when these 
latter pride themselves on their distinction from col- 
lectivist socialists. The family of Neocles was never 
well-to-do; his occupation was that of an elementary 
schoolmaster. The gossip of a later day affirmed 
that, when a boy, the son helped the father in his 
duties and prepared ink for the pupils. From the 
same perhaps untrustworthy source we learn that 
his mother, Chaerestrata, performed certain dubious 
rites, half religious, half magical, intended to pro- 
pitiate the deities and avert disease and misfortune 
by charms and incantations. At these rites, cele- 
brated at the cottages of her neighbours, it was the 
boy's part to assist his mother by reading the incan- 
tations. If this story is true, the employment must 
have been singularly uncongenial to one who all his 
life long hated falsehood, deceit, and superstition. 
In 323 B. C. he proceeded to Athens to be enrolled 
as a citizen and to undergo that training in military 
duties which the constitution assigned to youths be- 
tween the ages of eighteen and twenty/ ' In this ser- 
vice he made the acquaintance of the poet Menander, 
who, born in the same year as himself, became his 
friend and admirer. The spirit of the Epicurean 
philosophy rnay be said to pervade the works of this 
great dramatist of the New Comedy. About this 
time Xenocrates was teaching in the Academy and 
Theophrastus in the Lyceum; Aristotle had retired 
to Chalcis, where in the next year he died. 

But events marched apace. The death of Alex- 
ander was followed by the unfo'rtunate Lamian war, 
and in 322 B. C. Perdiccas expelled the Athenian 
colonists from their holdings in Samos. Epicurus 
joined his father, how more than ever a broken 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 155 

man, at Colophon. Of the next dozen years we 
have little information, but we find him in 310 B. C, 
in his thirty-second year, at Mitylene, where he came 
forward as a teacher of philosophy. Even as a 
schoolboy he is said to have given proofs of an in- 
quiring mind. When reading in Hesiod how all 
things had their origin in Chaos, he puzzled the 
master by asking, "Whence came Chaos?" In 
after days he boasted that he had been self-taught. 
His writings and conversation were enlivened with 
scofFs, gibes, and sneers at all other schools of so- 
called wisdom, a precedent of liberty which in the 
later Epicureans ran to unbounded licence. "The 
followers of Plato he used to call ' the flatterers of 
Dionysius,' and Plato himself 'the man of gold,' and 
Aristotle 'a profligate who, after squandering his 
patrimony, joined the army and sold drugs.' Prota- 
goras he called 'the porter' and 'the copyist of Demo- 
critus,' and said that 'he taught grammar in villages.' 
Heraclitus he called 'the confusion-maker,' and 
Democritus 'the babbler.'" 1 It is quite certain, 
however, that he studied the system of Democritus 
with unusual care, and there is no ground for re- 
jecting the story that he was for some time a pupil 
of the Democritean Nausiphanes of Teos, whom he 
sarcastically styled a "mollusc," to express contempt 
for his want of backbone. At Mitylene, Epicurus 
gained over Hermarchus, afterward his successor, 
and at Lampsacus, on the Hellespont, he made the 
most enduring friendships of his life. Here he be- 
came acquainted with Idomeneus and Leonteus, 
men of great influence in that town, who were his 
patrons and lifelong correspondents and, with 

1 Usener, Epicurea, p. 363, 1. 8. This invaluable work will be our 
main source throughout the next two chapters. 



156 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Metrodorus and Polyaenus, the ablest among his 
disciples. 

Though his teaching in Asia had been eminently 
successful, he must have felt the attraction of the 
home of philosophy. Athens was still the centre of 
intellectual activity and social intercourse for the 
ancient world, as Paris for the modern world. Here 
was the most refined society, the greatest possibilities 
for the aesthetic enjoyment of life. Accordingly, 
about 306 B. C, Epicurus removed with his pupils 
to Athens, which he never afterward quitted except 
for short visits to Asia Minor. Of one such visit we 
have a charming memorial, unearthed, like so much 
besides of Epicurean literature, from beneath the 
ashes of Herculaneum. It is a letter written by the 
master to a little child, possibly the daughter of 
Metrodorus, of whom more hereafter. We may 
premise that Themista was the wife of Leonteus, of 
Lampsacus, and Matron obviously a domestic in 
charge of the child. 

"We came to Lampsacus, Pythocles, Hermarchus, 
Ctesippus, and myself, and we are quite well. We 
found there Themista and our other friends, and they 
are quite well. I hope you are well, too, and your 
mamma, and that you obey her and papa and 
Matron in everything, as you used to do. For you 
know quite well, my pet, that I and all the others 
love you very much, because you are obedient to 
them in everything. 1 

Even Swinburne 2 admits the genius of the child- 
less George Eliot for understanding the ways of 
children, and we may well believe that the bachelor 
Epicurus, like the bachelor Herbert Spencer, was a 

1 Epicurea, Fragment 176, p. 154, 11. 

2 In his Note on Charlotte Bronte. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 157 

welcome guest in a family where there were children. 
For more than thirty years, then, Epicurus resided 
continuously in Athens. He founded a school by the 
simple expedient of purchasing for eighty minae a 
house and garden in the quarter known as Melite, 
where his friends and disciples might have easy ac- 
cess to him.. Hence his followers were often known 
as the Garden Philosophers. The little society was 
united together by no other tie than that of a common 
affection to their teacher. Friends and admirers 
quickly gathered round him, among them his three 
brothers, who almost worshipped him. Nor were 
women excluded, and even slaves were numbered 
among his pupils. Though leading the life of a re- 
cluse and holding aloof from political parties, he 
enjoyed intercourse with the best minds of the day. 
These years were not spent idly. Like Democritus, 
Plato, and Aristotle before him, he was an inde- 
fatigable and voluminous author. He wrote some 
three hundred separate treatises, being surpassed in 
the wealth of his philosophic output by Chrysippus 
alone among the ancients. At the same time he 
kept up a vigorous correspondence with friends at 
a distance who shared his aims. As we know from 
Herculaneum, selections were published from the 
letters of Epicurus, Metrodorus, Polyaenus, Her- 
marchus, and their acquaintance. His great work, 
On Nature, in thirty-seven books or rolls, occupied 
him for several years. It had reached Book XV in 
300-299 B. C, while Book XXVIII was finished in 
296-5 B. C. In the production of a quantity of 
literature so prodigious, something had to be sacri- 
ficed. Ancient critics complain sadly that the 
qualities of elegance and lucid arrangement so con- 
spicuous in his three great predecessors above men- 



158 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

tioned were totally wanting in him. Yet even 
Cicero admits that, crude and commonplace as his 
ideas were, the meaning was always plain; and prob- 
ably this was all their author cared for. He was 
too much in earnest to cultivate the graces of style, 
and he looked down with contempt upon the accom- 
plishments of an ordinary Athenian education, in 
which high-flown rhetoric and hair-splitting logic 
played a leading part. 1 

The last years of Epicurus were clouded. His 
favourite disciple, Metrodorus, died in 277 B. C, at 
the age of fifty-three, and another able pupil, Poly- 
aenus, predeceased him. The former left a son and 
daughter, the latter a son, and Epicurus must have 
deemed himself in a special sense responsible for 
the education and future welfare of these orphans, 
to whom he was probably guardian. By his will 
his executors are charged 2 to provide for their main- 
tenance in consultation with Hermarchus, and in 
due course to provide a dowry for the girl on her 
marriage. Epicurus had always been in delicate 
health. In his boyhood, if we may trust Suidas, 
he had to be lifted down from his chair, was blear- 
eyed, and of so sensitive a skin that he could not 
bear any clothing heavier than a tunic. He was 
long subject to gout and dropsy, for many years he 
was unable to walk, and finally renal calculus carried 
him off in 270 B. C, in his seventy-second year. 
These painful disorders he endured with the utmost 

1 To judge by the scanty remains, the diction of Epicurus is not pure 
Attic, but already betrays signs of that fusion of Greek dialects, generally 
known by the name of Koine, which began about the time of Alexander's 
conquests. In this respect Epicurus stands midway between Aristotle 
and Polybius. See P. Linde, De Epicuri vocabulis ab optima Atthide 
alienis. 

2 Epicurea, p. 166, 13. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 159 

fortitude. Scraps have come down to us from two 
letters written by him in his last illness, the one to 
his successor Hermarchus, the other to Idomeneus, 
of Lampsacus. The latter * runs as follows: 

"On this last, yet blessed, day of my life, I write 
to you. Pains and tortures of body I have to the 
full, but there is set over against these the joy of my 
heart at the memory of our happy conversations 
in the past. Do you, if you would be worthy of your 
devotion to me and philosophy, take care of the 
children of Metrodorus." 

To the members of his little society he seems to 
have been at all times extremely generous in contri- 
butions from his own means, though he scouted 
the notion of a common purse, as savouring too much 
of mistrust and suspicion between friends. It ap- 
pears from his letters that the aged philosopher 
had accepted annual contributions sent for his sup- 
port from his wealthy friends in Lampsacus and 
possibly from other quarters. Here we are re- 
minded of the pecuniary help which Auguste Comte 
received from his friends and admirers. In the 
character of Epicurus the conspicuous traits are 
sympathy, generosity, and sweet reasonableness. 
No man was ever more vilely slandered or more 
cruelly misunderstood, but the severest critics of 
his teaching, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, in the most 
honourable way dissociate themselves entirely from 
the aspersions cast upon his personal character. 
"Of his unequalled consideration toward all there is 
ample testimony," says an ancient writer. 2 "I 
appeal to his native country, which honoured him with 
a statue, to the great number of his friends, who 
could be counted by whole cities, to the followers 

1 Epicurea, Fragment 138, p. 143, 16. , 2 lb. p. 364, 1. 



160 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

attracted and held fast by the siren-charms of his 
doctrines, to the long continuance and perpetuation 
of his school in strong contrast to the checkered 
fortunes of its rivals, to his gratitude to his parents, 
his generosity to his brothers, his gentleness to his 
slaves, as attested by his will and also by the fact 
that slaves were among his pupils — in fact, to his 
universal kindness to all men." No less positive 
is the evidence as to his frugality and abstemious 
mode of life. "Send me some cheese of Cythnos," 
he writes to a friend, "that I may be able to fare 
sumptuously when I like." x He was usually con- 
tented with mere bread and water. The school 
made experiments in frugal living. In a letter to 
Polyaenus the master tells him that, while Metro- 
dorus had only reduced his expenses to fourpence a 
day, he himself had contrived to subsist on less. 2 
Whatever else he was, such a man was at all events 
no epicure. At the same time such abstemiousness, 
if practised universally, would not be without its 
dangers. It has often happened that to raise the 
standard of comfort and so to create wants is the 
first step in social advance. What satisfied Epicurus 
would fail to satisfy all men, or even the average 
man. He must be credited with a certain lack of 
imagination if he did not perceive this. Similarly 
with another characteristic trait, his quietism. The 
love of adventure, the thirst for honour, the cravi gs 
of ambition found no response in his breast; <ut 
neither would his own love of study, meditation, «nd 
retirement ever appeal to any but a small section of 
men, invalids, the elderly or the disillusioned. One 
detail serves to illustrate the practical turn of his 

1 Epicurea, Fragment 182, p. 156, 17. 

2 lb., Fragment 158, p. 149, 20. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 161 

mind. He foresaw that many would be curious to 
learn the main outlines of his system without pos- 
sessing the leisure, inclination, or ability to master 
its details. Instead of repelling the advances of such 
honest folk, as Plato had done when he inscribed 
over the portals of the Academy "Let no one enter 
here who is ignorant of geometry," Epicurus is care- 
ful, even anxious, to cater for their peculiar needs. 
He brought out an epitome of his doctrines, itself a 
work of considerable length, known as the "larger" 
epitome. As scholars now recognise, this was the 
work which the poet Lucretius made the basis of 
his poem in six books and over seven thousand 
lines. But this was not enough. A shorter summary 
was prepared and possibly the extant epistles to 
Herodotus and Menoeceus formed part of this. 
They may, however, be distinct compilations. Lastly, 
either the master himself or some authorities of the 
school picked out a selection of golden sentences or 
maxims, 1 articles of belief, which the members of 
the society were exhorted to commit to memory, 
to recite, and make the subject of meditation. The 
Epicurean literature is full of allusions to them. 
Not only are they preserved in the pages of Diogenes 
Laertius, but they were actually discovered a few 
years ago inscribed on the walls of the market-place 
of (Enoanda, an obscure Pisidian town in the heart of 
Asia Minor, where they might best catch the eye 
alike of the rustic from the country and of the 
cultured traveller. 

Thus, though the three hundred treatises of the 
master are either wholly lost or survive only in the 
buried treasures of Herculaneum, yet, as a result of 
these precautions, we are better informed upon most 

1 Epicurea, p. 71, sqq. 



162 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

points of Epicurean doctrine than upon the system 
of any ancient philosopher with the sole exception 
of Plato and Plotinus. But in fact the subsequent 
history of the school is in itself a sufficient proof of 
its founder's talent for organisation. Elsewhere we 
find contending influences at work, perpetual change 
of view and shifting of opinion, particularly when a 
succession of teachers interpreted, enlarged, or vio- 
lently combated the doctrines bequeathed to them. 
The Academy was not content to preserve the tenets 
of Plato unaltered, but passed by violent reactions 
from dogmatism to scepticism, and probabilism, and 
back to dogmatism again. In the Epicurean society 
there was nothing comparable to this. From first to 
last its members were united by a common reverence 
for their founder, and hardly a trace is to be discov- 
ered of any serious dissent. It is their constant boast 
that they frequently won adherents from the rival 
schools, but that no Epicurean had gone over to 
another school. To this rule there are only one or 
two exceptions, the most conspicuous being Timoc- 
rates, who seems, on personal grounds, to have had 
a feud with his brother Metrodorus. Numenius 1 
compared the school of Epicurus to a republic free 
from party strife, having only one mind, one opinion, 
in which an innovation would have been regarded as 
an impiety. When Lucretius speaks of himself as 
repeating oracles more holy, and far more certain 
than those of the Pythian prophetess, he merely 
voices the convictions of the whole brotherhood. 
Their reverence for the writings of their master is the 
counterpart of the attitude of evangelical Protestants 
toward the Bible. 

It is now time to inquire into the nature of that 

1 Eusebius, Prcep. Evangel., XIV, 5. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 163 

teaching which met with such an enthusiastic recep- 
tion and was greeted almost like a revelation. Phil- 
osophy was defined by Epicurus as "a daily business 
of speech and thought to secure a happy life." 1 
Here is struck the note of intense earnestness char- 
acteristic alike of Epicurus and his age. Philosophy 
is a practical concern; it deals with the health of the 
soul. It is a life and not merely a doctrine. It 
holds out the promise of well-being and happiness. 
This is the one thing needful. Literature, art, and 
the other embellishments of life are not indispensable. 
The wise man lives poems instead of making them. 
"It need not trouble anyone," said Metrodorus, 2 "if 
he had never read a line of Homer and did not know 
whether Hector was a Trojan or a Greek." Ac- 
cordingly, as we have seen, Epicurus regarded with 
indifference the ordinary routine education of the day 
in grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, and music, and for 
mere erudition he had a hearty contempt. The only 
study absolutely necessary for a philosopher was the 
study of nature, or what we now call natural science, 
and this must be cultivated, not for its own sake, but 
merely as the indispensable means to a happy life. 
Unless and until we have learned the natural causes 
of. phenomena, we are at the mercy of superstition, 
fears, and terrors. 

We must defer to a subsequent chapter the con- 
sideration of the steps by which Epicurus was led 
to the conclusion that the external world is a vast 
machine built up by the concourse of atoms in 
motion without an architect or plan. Suppose, 
however, this conclusion firmly established; what has 
our philosopher to tell us respecting human life and 
action ? In what consists the happiness which is our 

1 Epicurea, Fragment 219, p. 169, 4. 2 Fragm. 24, ed. Korte. 



164 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

being's end and aim ? This had, by the time of 
Epicurus, become the chief question of philosophy, 
and, strange as it may appear, the answer is no new 
doctrine, but one which had often been proposed 
and discussed in the ancient schools. He identifies 
happiness, at least nominally, with pleasure, and he 
means the pleasure of the agent. His is a system of 
Egoistic Hedonism. \ Verbally, then, he is in agree- 
ment with Aristippus, the founder of the Cyrenaics, 
with the Socrates of Plato's Protagoras, and with 
Eudoxus, whose doctrine of pleasure is criticised by 
Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. The same 
doctrine is discussed in more than one of Plato's 
dialogues, sometimes apparently with approval, some- 
times with disapproval. The historical Socrates 
never, so far as we know, reached a final definition 
of Good. He knew no good, he said, which was not 
good for somebody or something. His teaching 
would serve equally well as an introduction to Ego- 
istic Hedonism, to Universal Hedonism, to Utili- 
tarianism, or to Eudaemonism. The difficulty at 
once occurs; if pleasure and good are identical, why 
is it that some pleasures are approve4 as good and 
others condemned as evil ? Why, on this hypothesis, 
should Jife ever present conflicting alternatives in 
which -we are called upon to choose between doing 
what is good and doing what is pleasant ? Every 
hedonistic system must face this problem. Some 
progress had been made by Plato in the Protagoras. 
There his spokesman, Socrates, maintains that since 
every one desires what is best for himself, and since 
he further identifies good with pleasure, evil with 
pain, he avoids pleasure when it is the source of still 
greater pain, and only chooses pain when a greater 
amount of pleasure results from it. In this Epicurus 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 165 

heartily concurred. He never recedes from the posi- 
tion that pleasure is always a good and pain always 
an evil, but it does not follow that pleasure is always 
to be chosen, pain to be shunned. For experience 
shows that certain pleasures are attended by painful 
consequences, certain pains by salutary results, and 
it is necessary to measure or weigh these after-effects 
one against the other before acting. "No one be- 
holding evil chooses it, but, being enticed by it as by 
a bait, and believing it to contain more good than 
evil, he is ensnared." 1 

We now get a clearer notion of the end of action, 
which turns out to be the maximum of pleasure to the 
agent after subtraction of whatever pain is involved 
in securing the pleasure or directly attends upon it. 
At this point Epicurus parts company with Aristip- 
pus, whose crude presentation of hedonistic doctrine 
identified the end with the pleasure of the moment. 
So soon as conditions and' consequences are taken 
into account, pleasure tends to become an ideal ele- 
ment capable of being realised in a series of actions, 
or in the whole of life, but not to be exhausted at any 
given point of the series. More important, however, 
for determining the exact significance of this concep- 
tion is the incursion which Epicurus makes into the 
psychology of desire. Desire is prompted by want; 
unsatisfied want is painful. When we act in order 
to gratify our desires, we are seeking to remove the 
pain of want, but the cessation of the want brings a 
cessation of mental trouble or unrest, and this must 
carefully be distinguished from positive pleasure, 
which is itself a mental disturbance. Experience 
shows a succession of mental disturbances, painful 
wants, the effort to remove them, and the pleasurable 

1 Wotke, Wiener Studien, X, p. 192, sent. 16. 



166 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

excitement which attends their removal. But all 
this shifting train has for its natural end and aim a 
state which is neither want nor desire nor the pleas- 
urable excitement of satisfying want. All of them 
are fugitive states as contrasted with the resultant 
peace and serenity in which they end. The former 
are compared to an agitated sea, whether swept by 
storms or tempests or in gentle, equable motion, the 
latter to the profound calm, waveless and noiseless, 
of a sheltered haven. Beyond this neutral state of 
freedom from bodily pain and mental disturbance 
it is impossible to advance. We may seek new 
pleasures by gratifying new desires; we are only re- 
turning to the old round of painful want, desire, and 
pleasurable excitement of removing the want. There 
is only one way to escape from this round, and that 
is to be content to rest in the neutral state. After all, 
this is the maximum of pleasure of which we are 
capable; any deviation from it may vary our pleasure 
but cannot increase it. "The amount of pleasure is 
defined by the removal of all pain. Wherever there 
is pleasure, so long as it is present, there is neither 
bodily pain nor mental suffering, nor both." 1 The 
consideration of these elementary facts should regu- 
late preference and aversion. Prudence demands 
the suppression of all unnecessary desires. Epicurus 
does not carry renunciation so far as the Buddhists, 
who hold that to live is to suffer, and explain the will 
to live as that instinctive love of life which, partly 
conscious, partly unconscious, is inherent in all liv- 
ing beings. They look for their rest in Nirvana. Cer- 
tain things, says Epicurus, we must desire, because 
without them we cannot live, and life to Epicurus 
is worth living; and yet the repose which consists in 

1 Epicurea, p. 72, 1, golden maxim No. 3. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 167 

the cessation of desire is, after all, not altogether un- 
like the Nirvana of the Buddhists. 

In this negative conception of happiness as free- 
dom from pain, whether of body or mind, Epicurus 
must have been influenced by the ethical teaching 
of Democritus, who also made happiness in its 
essential nature consist in the cheerfulness and well- 
being, the right disposition, harmony, and unalter- 
able peace of mind which enable a man to live a calm 
and steadfast life. Democritus also exalted mental 
above bodily pleasures and pains, and laid stress 
upon ignorance, fear, folly, and superstition as causes 
of those mental pains which tend most to disturb 
life. With Epicurus the great obstacle to happiness 
is neither pain nor poverty, nor the absence of the 
ordinary good things of life; it is rather whatever 
contributes to disturb our serenity and mental satis- 
faction, whatever causes fear, anxiety — in a word, 
mental trouble. To be independent of circum- 
stances is his ideal; that a man should find his true 
good in himself. He is ready with practical sugges- 
tions for realising this independence. Groundless fear 
must be removed by the study of nature, which shows 
that the fear of death, the fear of the gods, belief in 
Providence and in divine retribution are chimeras; 
desire must be regulated by prudence and the virtues 
cultivated as the indispensable means to a pleasant 
life. Fatalism is not true any more than the doctrine 
that all things happen by chance. The future is not 
in our power; our actions alone are in our power to 
make them what we please. The letter to Menoeceus * 
sets forth the ethical doctrine of Epicurus in a con- 
venient summary as follows: 

"Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is 

1 Epicurea, p. 59 sqq. 



168 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

young nor weary in the search thereof when he is 
grown old. For no age is too early or too late for 
the health of the soul. And to say that the season 
for philosophy has not yet come, or that it is passed 
and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness 
is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both 
old and young ought to seek wisdom, that so a man 
as age comes over him may be young in good things, 
because of the grace of what has been, and while he 
is young may likewise be old, because he has no fear 
of the things which are to come. So we must exer- 
cise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, 
since, if that be present, we have everything and, if 
that be absent, all our actions are directed toward 
attaining it. 

"Those things which without ceasing I have de- 
clared unto thee, those do and exercise thyself therein, 
holding them to be the elements of right life. First, 
believe that God is a being blessed and immortal, 
according to the notion of a God commonly held 
amongst men; and so believing, thou shalt not af- 
firm of him aught that is contrary to immortality or 
that agrees not with blessedness, but shalt believe 
about him whatsoever may uphold both his blessed- 
ness and his immortality. For verily there are 
gods, and the knowledge of them is manifest; but 
they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing 
that men do not steadfastly maintain the notions 
they form respecting them. Not the man who 
denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he 
who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes 
about them, is truly impious. For the utterances of 
the multitude about the gods are not true precon- 
ceptions but false assumptions, according to which 
the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 169 

greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand 
of the gods, seeing that they are always favourable 
to their own good qualities and take pleasure in 
men like unto themselves, but reject as alien what- 
ever is not of their kind. 

"Accustom thyself to believe that death is nothing 
to us, for good and evil imply sentience and death 
is the privation of all sentience; therefore, a right 
understanding that death is nothing to us makes 
enjoyable the mortality of life, not by adding to life 
an illimitable time, but by taking away the yearning 
after immortality. For life has no terrors for him 
who has thoroughly apprehended that there are no 
terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, 
is the man who says that he fears death, not because 
it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in 
the prospect. Whatsoever causes no annoyance J 
when it is present causes only a groundless pain in 
the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful ' 
of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that when we are, 
death is not come, and when death is come, we are 
not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or the 
dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist 
no longer. But in the world, at one time men shun 
death as the greatest of all evils and at another time 
choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise 
man does not deprecate life nor does he fear the ces- 
sation of life. The thought of life is no offence to 
him nor is the cessation of life regarded as an evil. 
And even as men choose of good, not merely and 
simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, 
so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most 
pleasant and not merely that which is longest. 
And he who admonishes the young to live well and 
the old to make a good end, speaks foolishly, not 



170 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

merely because of the desirableness of life, but because 
the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to 
die well. Much worse is he who says that it were 
good not to be born, but when once one is born to 
pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. If he, 
in truth, believes this, why does he not depart from 
life ? It were easy for him to do so if once he is 
firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery 
his words are foolishness, for those who hear believe 
him not. 

"We must remember that the future is neither 
wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither 
must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor 
despair of it as quite certain not to come. 

"We must also reflect that of desires some are 
natural, some are groundless; and that of the 
natural, some are necessary as well as natural and 
some are natural only. And of the necessary desires, 
some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if 
the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are 
even to live. He who has a clear and certain under- 
standing of these things will direct every preference 
and aversion toward securing health of body and 
tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and 
end of a blessed life. For the end of all our actions 
is to be free from pain and fear, and when once we 
have attained this all the tempest of the soul is laid, 
seeing that the living creature has no need to go in 
search of something that is lacking nor to look for 
anything else by which the good of the soul and of 
the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained 
because of the absence of pleasure, then, and then 
only, do we feel the need of pleasure; but when we 
feel no pain, then we no longer stand in need of 
pleasure. Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 171 

omega of a blessed life. Pleasure is our first and 
kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice 
and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inas- 
much as we make feeling the rule by which to judge 
of every good thing. 

"And since pleasure is our first and native good, 
for that reason we do not choose every pleasure 
whatsoever, but ofttimes pass over many pleasures 
when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And 
ofttimes we consider pains superior to pleasures when 
submission to the pains for a long time brings us as 
its consequence a greater pleasure. While, there- 
fore, all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is 
good, not all pleasure is choiceworthy, just as all pain 
is an evil but all pain is not to be shunned. It is, 
however, by measuring one against another, and by 
looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that 
all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we 
treat the good as an evil and the evil, on the con- 
trary, as a good. Again, we regard independence of 
outward things as a great good, not so as in all 
cases to use little, but so as to be contented with 
little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded 
that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who 
stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural 
is easily procured and only the vain and worthless 
hard to win. Plain fare is not more distasteful than 
a costly diet, when once the pain of want has been 
removed, while bread and water confer the highest 
possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry 
lips. To habituate one's self, therefore, to simple 
and inexpensive diet supplies all that is needful 
for health, and enables a man to meet the neces- 
sary requirements of life without shrinking, and it 
places us in a better condition when we approach 



172 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of 
fortune. 

"When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and 
aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal 
or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood 
to do by some, through ignorance, prejudice, or wilful 
misinterpretation. By pleasure we mean the ab- 
sence of pain in the body and trouble in the soul. 
It is not an unbroken succession of drinking feasts 
and of revelry, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of 
the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table 
which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, 
searching out the grounds of every choice and 
avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through 
which greatest tumults take possession of the soul. 
Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is 
prudence. Wherefore, prudence is a more precious 
thing even than philosophy; from it spring all the 
other virtues, for it teaches that we cannot lead a 
life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, 
honour, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, 
honour, and justice which is not also a life of pleasure. 
For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant 
life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them. 

"Who, then, is superior, in thy judgment, to such a 
man ? He holds a holy belief concerning the gods, 
and is altogether free from the fear of death. He 
has diligently considered the end fixed by nature, and 
understands how easily the limit of good things can 
be procured and attained; that as for evils either 
their duration or their poignancy is but slight. 
Destiny, which some introduce as sovereign over all 
things, he laughs to scorn, affirming that certain 
things happen of necessity, others by chance, others 
through our own agency. For he sees that necessity 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 173 

destroys responsibility and that chance or fortune 
is inconstant; whereas our own actions are free, 
and it is to them that praise and blame naturally 
attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends 
of the gods than to bow beneath that yoke of des- 
tiny which the natural philosophers have imposed. 
The one holds out some faint hope that we may 
escape by honouring the gods, while the necessity of 
the philosophers is deaf to all supplications. Nor 
does such an one make chance a god, as the world 
in general does (for in the acts of God nothing is 
irregular), nor yet regard it as a vacillating cause, 
for he believes that chance dispenses to men no good 
or evil which can make life blessed though it furn- 
ishes means and occasions for great good and great 
evil. He believes that the misfortune of the wise is 
better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, 
in short, that what is well judged in action should not 
owe its successful issue to the aid of chance. 

" Exercise thyself in these and kindred precepts 
day and night, both by thyself and with him who is 
like unto thee; then never, either in waking or in 
dream, wilt thou be disturbed but wilt live as a god 
amongst men. For by living in the midst of immor- 
tal blessings man loses all semblance of mortality." 

In this document scientific ethics, as the term is 
now understood, is overlaid with a variety of other 
topics. The practical exordium, the dogmatic in- 
culcation of moral precepts, the almost apostolic 
fervour and seriousness of tone find their nearest 
counterpart in the writings of religious teachers. 
We are reminded by turns of the Proverbs of Sol- 
omon and of the Epistles of St. Paul. The re- 
jection of the popular religion and the denial of 
divine retribution are coupled with an emphatic 



174 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

affirmation of the existence of blessed and immortal 
gods. The instinctive fear of death is declared to 
be groundless; and here the writer enlarges upon a 
theme, first started by the sophist Prodicus, that 
death is nothing to us. Incidentally, the value of 
life is vindicated and the folly of pessimism exposed. 
The limitation of desire is seen to involve habitua- 
tion to an almost ascetic bodily discipline, in order 
that the wise man may become self-sufficing, that 
is, independent of external things. Lastly, the free- 
dom of human action is stoutly maintained in op- 
position to the doctrine of natural necessity first 
promulgated by the earlier Atomists Leucippus and 
Democritus, but at the time of Epicurus developed 
with the utmost rigour and consistency by the Stoics. 
On the main question there is no uncertainty. 
The pleasure of the agent is the foundation upon 
which Epicurus, like many after him, sought to 
construct a theory of morality which would explain 
scientifically the judgments of praise and blame 
passed by the ordinary man. All systems allow that 
there are self-regarding virtues and self-regarding 
duties, and when he has given his peculair interpre- 
tation of pleasure, Epicurus has no great difficulty 
with these. But the case is different when we come 
to the social virtues and the duties which a man 
owes to his neighbour. In a system which makes 
self-love the centre of all virtues, and in which all 
duties must be self-regarding, if we accept, as he did, 
as a psychological truth that by instinct and nature 
all are led to pursue their own pleasure and avoid 
their own pain, how can any conduct savouring of dis- 
interestedness find rational justification ? This was 
the great problem of the English and French moral- 
ists in that age of enlightenment, the eighteenth cen- 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 175 

tury. As then, so two thousand years before in 
Greece, extreme individualism was the order of 
the day. The primary fact is individual man as he 
is given by nature, and all that lies outside this, 
all that he has been made by institutions like the 
family and the state, all the relations that go be- 
yond the individual are subsequent, secondary, de- 
rivative, requiring to be explained from him and to 
justify their validity to the reason. Take a concrete 
instance. Whence came the rules of justice ? What 
makes actions just and how is my obedience to such 
rules, enjoined by Epicurus, an indispensable means 
to my own happiness ? In short, how does disinter- 
ested conduct arise under a selfish system ? The 
answer given to this question was often repeated 
later. It reappears in Hobbes and Rousseau. Be- 
fore dealing with it, it is necessary to consider briefly 
the Epicurean conception of the growth of human 
civilisation from the earliest times. 

Looking back at the past history of our planet, 
Epicurus derives all organisms, first plants, then ani- 
mals, from mother earth. The species with which we 
are familiar are those which, being adapted to their 
environment, prospered in the struggle for existence. 
They were preceded by many uncouth creatures and 
ill-contrived monsters, many races of living things, 
which have since died out from lack of food or some 
similar cause. Apart from the undeniable suggestion 
of one feature in the doctrine of evolution, the account 
of the origin of life is in its details wholly unscientific 
and even repulsive. But with surer insight primitive 
man is described as hardier than now: destitute of 
clothing and habitation, he lived a roving life like the 
beasts with whom he waged ceaseless warfare, haunt- 
ing the woods and caves, insensible to hardship and 



176 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

privation. The first step in advance was the dis- 
covery of fire, due to accident. Afterward man 
learned to build huts and clothe himself with skins. 
Then the progress of culture is traced with the begin- 
nings of domestic life through the discovery and trans- 
mission of useful arts. As comforts multiplied, the 
robust strength of the state of nature was gradually 
impaired by new disabilities, particularly suscepti- 
bility to disease. Language was not the outcome of 
convention, but took its rise from the cries which, like 
the noises of animals, are the instinctive expression 
of the feelings and emotions. Experience is the 
mother of invention and of all the arts. They are 
all due to the intelligent improvement of what was 
offered or suggested to man by natural occasions. 
None of the blessings of civilisation are due to the 
adventitious aid of divine agency. Man raised him- 
self from a state of primitive rudeness and barbarism 
and gradually widened the gulf which separated him 
from other animals. From the stage when men and 
women lived on the wild fruits of the wood and drank 
the running stream, when their greatest fear was of 
the claws and fangs of savage beasts, to 1 the stage 
when they formed civic communities and obeyed laws 
and submitted to the ameliorating influences of wed- 
lock and friendship, all has been the work of man, 
utilising his natural endowments and natural circum- 
stances. Religion has been rather a hinderance than 
a help in the course of civilisation. Next to the use 
of money, the baleful dread of supernatural powers 
has been the most fruitful source of evil. 

In this historical survey, where shall we find the 
origin of law and justice ? Epicurus was fully con- 
vinced that in the present state of society "the just 
man enjoys the greatest peace of mind, the unjust is 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 177 

full of the utmost disquietude"; ' and yet injustice is 
not in itself an evil, and in the state of nature man 
is predatory. The explanation tendered by Epicurus, 
as by Hobbes and Hume, is that of a compact which, 
once made, is ever afterward strictly observed. Yet 
it is not easy to discover why men should carry out a 
compact made in their natural, that is, predatory state. 
Why should the wise man observe it if he find secret 
injustice possible and convenient ? Epicurus frankly 
admits that the only conceivable motive which can 
deter him is self-interest, the desire to avoid the pain- 
ful anxieties that the perpetual dread of discovery 
would entail. Even if the compact could be evaded, 
prudential considerations forbid it, since the risk of 
detection is enormous and the mere possibility of dis- 
covery is an ever-present evil sufficient to poison all 
the goods of life. That such motives do not weigh 
with criminals is irrelevant; we are dealing now with 
the wise and prudent man. "Natural justice is a 
contract of expediency, to prevent one man from 
harming or being harmed by another." 2 "Those 
animals which were incapable of making compacts 
with one another, to the end that they might neither 
inflict nor suffer harm, are without either justice or 
injustice. Similarly those tribes which either could 
not or would not form mutual covenants to the same 
end are in the like case." 3 Justice, then, is artificial, 
not natural. The view could not be more clearly 
expressed. This is just the position taken up by 
modern international law and just the attitude adopt- 
ed by Christian nations; in historical times to those 
outside the pale of civilisation, who are assumed 

1 Epicurea, p. 7.5, 3, golden maxim No. XVII. 

2 lb., p. 78, 8, golden maxim No. XXXI. 

3 lb., p. 78, 10, golden maxim No. XXXII. 



178 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

to have no rights. So, too, Hume holds that we 
should not, properly speaking, lie under any re- 
straint of justice with regard to rational beings who 
were so much weaker than ourselves that we had no 
reason to fear their resentment. "There never was 
an absolute justice," says one of the golden sen- 
tences, " but only a convention made in mutual inter- 
course, in whatever region, from time to time, pro- 
viding against the infliction or suffering of harm." * 
"Injustice is not in itself an evil, but only in its con- 
sequence, viz., the terror which is excited by appre- 
hension that those appointed to punish such offences 
will discover the injustice." 2 "It is impossible for 
the man who secretly violates any article of the social 
compact to feel confident that he will remain undis- 
covered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand 
times; for until his death he is never sure he will not 
be detected." 3 It was easy for the Stoics to present 
this in an unfavourable light as does Epictetus when 
he says: "Not even does Epicurus himself declare 
stealing to be bad, but he admits that detection is, 
and because it is impossible to have security against 
detection, for this reason he says, Do not steal." 4 
"Taken generally," to quote another Epicurean say- 
ing, "justice is the same for all, but in its applica- 
tion to particular cases of territory or the like, it 
varies under different circumstances." 5 In other 
words, justice is the foundation of all positive law, 
but the positive law of one state will differ from that of 
another. "Whatever in conventional law is attested 
to be expedient in the needs arising out of mutual 

1 Epicurea, p. 78, 15, golden maxim No. XXXIII. 

2 lb., p. 79, 1, golden maxim No. XXXIV. 

3 lb., p. 79, 4, golden maxim No. XXXV. 

4 lb., p. 322, 6. 

6 lb., p. 79, 8, golden maxim No. XXXVI. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 179 

intercourse is by its nature just, whether the same for 
all or not, and in case any law is made and does not 
prove suitable to the expediency of mutual inter- 
course, then this is no longer just. And should the 
expediency which is expressed by the law vary and 
only for a time correspond with the notion of justice, 
nevertheless, for the time being, it was just, so long 
as we do not trouble ourselves about empty terms 
but look broadly at facts." 1 Thus a law judged to 
be inexpedient is no longer binding. The old sophis- 
tical quibble that no positive law can be unjust Epi- 
curus, from his stand-point, can easily expose, and he 
is equally well able to meet the conservative dislike 
and dread of legislative innovation as something es- 
sentially immoral. "Where without any change in 
circumstances the conventional laws when judged by 
their consequences were seen not to correspond with 
the notion of justice, such laws were not really just; 
but wherever the laws have ceased to be expedient in 
consequence of a change in circumstances, in that case 
the laws were for the time being just, when they were 
expedient for the mutual intercourse of the citizens, 
and ceased subsequently to be just when they ceased 
to be expedient." 2 " He who best insured safety 
from external foes made into one nation all the folk 
capable of uniting together, and those incapable of 
such union he assuredly did not treat as aliens; if 
there were any whom he could not even on such terms 
incorporate, he excluded them from intercourse when- 
ever this suited with his own interests." 3 
- Thus civilisation is an advance upon the condition 
of primitive man; nor does Epicurus ever contem- 

1 Epicurea, p. 79, 12, golden maxim No. XXXVII. 

2 lb., p. 80, 6, golden maxim No. XXXVIII. 

3 lb., p. 80, 15, golden maxim No. XXXIX. 



180 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

plate the possibility of undoing what has been done. 
Applying the standard of human good in his own con- 
ception of it as tranquil enjoyment, he pronounces 
government to be a benefit to the wise so far as it 
protects them from harm. But it does not therefore 
follow that they should themselves take part in po- 
litical administration; they are only advised to do so 
in circumstances where it is necessary and so far as 
it is necessary for their own safety. Experience shows 
that as a rule the private citizen lives more calmly and 
safely than the public man. The burdens of office 
are a hinderance rather than an aid to the end of life. 
"The Epicureans," says Plutarch, "shun politics as 
the ruin and confusion of true happiness/' 1 An un- 
obtrusive life is the ideal. To strive at power without 
attaining one's own personal security is an act of 
folly certain to entail lasting discomfort. Moreover, 
as Philodemus remarks, " If any one were to inquire 
which influence is of all others the most hostile to 
friendship and the most productive of enmity, he 
would find it to be politics, because of the envy of 
one's rivals and the ambition natural in those so en- 
gaged and the discord recurring when opposite no- 
tions are proposed." 2 Restless spirits, however, who 
cannot find satisfaction in retirement are permitted 
to face the risks of public activity. , To all forms of 
government the Epicureans were theoretically indif- 
ferent, but the impossibility of pleasing the multitude 
and the necessity of strong control inclined them to 
favour the monarchical principle. Under all circum- 
stances they recommended unconditional obedience. 
The traditions of the old republican life of petty 
Greek states demanded from the citizen far more than 
this — active co-operation, personal sacrifice, enthusi- 

1 Epicurea, p. 327, 20. 3 lb., p. 328, 4. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 181 

asm for the common cause. Judged by this stand- 
ard, the Epicurean would seem to take an unfair 
advantage of the state. He got all the protection it 
afforded and shirked as much as he could of its 
burdens. But, in reality, what he was prepared to 
contribute would fully satisfy the demands of the 
modern territorial state. To obey the laws, to pay 
taxes, to assist by an occasional vote in the formation 
of public opinion constitutes nowadays the whole of 
civic duty for the vast majority of citizens. Under 
existing conditions how can it be otherwise ? For, 
in order to integrate, as it were, these multitudinous 
infinitesimals organisation is required; but division 
of responsibility and specialisation of function cir- 
cumscribe personal effort. Again, when the popular 
cry has been adequately voiced by press or platform 
and has taken effect through proportional represen- 
tation or other constitutional means, the greatness 
of the results secured and the very perfection of the 
machinery for securing them leave less and less scope 
to private initiative. 

The consistent application of individualist prin- 
ciples might enjoin a severance, so far as is possible, 
from the ties of the family no less than of the state, 
and the picture of the wise man represents him as 
shirking these responsibilities also. But such a 
counsel of perfection has regard to special circum- 
stances, and in all fairness the actual conduct of the 
man should be allowed to correct the supposed ten- 
dency of his system. Now, by his kindness to his 
brothers, his gratitude to his parents, and his tender 
solicitude for his wards, Epicurus is proved to have 
cherished warm family affection himself. Nor is it 
reasonable to presume that the philosopher who 
deprecated suicide, except in extreme cases, and set 



182 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the example by so cheerfully enduring severe physical 
pain, can ever seriously have intended race suicide. 
Political association, even if originally based upon a 
contract, has its present sanction in pains and penal- 
ties. It is at best a compromise, a pis aller of only 
relative and subsidiary value. Men submit to the 
compulsion and constraint which it entails for fear 
of finding something worse. The true form of asso- 
ciation is that in which man surrenders nothing of 
his original freedom, and this Epicurus believed to 
be realised in friendship, upon which he set the 
highest value. The only duties that Epicurus recog- 
nises are those voluntarily accepted on reasonable 
grounds, not from natural instinct or compulsion of 
circumstances. "No one," says Epicurus, "loves 
another except for his own interest." 1 "Human 
nature alone does not give natural affection for 
nothing, nor can it love without advantage to it- 
self." 2 "Of all things which wisdom provides for 
the happiness of a lifetime, by far the greatest is the 
acquisition of friendship." 3 The terms in which it 
is extolled recall the eulogies lavished upon the 
Christian grace of charity or love. It was the signal 
characteristic of the little society in the founder's 
lifetime, and it continued a prominent trait of the 
sect to the latest times. Upon its own principles no 
ethical system which starts with self-love can recog- 
nise disinterested conduct. Nor did Epicurus an- 
ticipate Hume's discovery and call in sympathy as a 
necessary supplement to self-interest. He is, there- 
fore, obliged to maintain that friendship, like justice, 
is based solely upon mutual utility. The services 
rendered have the same selfish motive which prompts 

1 Epicurea, p. 324, 16; cj. Wotke, Wiener Studien, X, p. 193, sent. 23. 

2 Epicurea, p. 320, 12. 3 lb., p. 77, 11. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 183 

the farmer to commit the seed to the soil in expecta- 
tion of a future harvest. So alone the theory is con- 
sistent; friendship, like the cynic's gratitude, must 
needs be a lively sense of favours yet to come. There 
is, of course, a difficulty at the beginning. Some one 
must make the start. "Neither those who are over- 
ready nor those who are too slow to enter into 
friendships are to be approved; one must even run 
some risk in order to make friends." * "To do 
good," says Epicurus, "is not only more noble, but 
also more pleasant" (mark the predicate) "than to 
receive good." 2 Benevolence would cease to be a 
virtue if it ceased to be self-regarding. Yet it was 
upon this unsound basis that devoted friendships 
were based. When we are told that the wise man 
will, upon occasion, even die for his friend, the sug- 
gestion of disinterested action, however inconsistent, 
can hardly be dismissed. "The wise man suffers 
no more pain when on the rack himself than when 
his friend is upon it; but if any man suspects his 
friend, his whole life will by his distrust be con- 
founded and turned upside down." 3 And there are 
other utterances to the same effect. "What we re- 
quire is not so much to have our needs supplied by 
our friends as to be assured that our needs will be 
supplied by them." 4 "The wise man, when brought 
into distress in company with others, shows himself 
a comrade ready to give rather than to receive; so 
great a treasure of self-reliance has he found." 5 

In the foregoing sketch the main questions of 
ethics have come before us and the answers of 



1 Wotke, Wiener Studien, X, p. 193, sent. 28. 

2 Epicurea, p. 325, 10. 

3 Wotke, /. c, p. 196, sentt. 56, 57. 

* lb., I. c, X, p. 193, sent. 34. s lb., I. c, X, p. 194, sent. 44. 



184 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Epicurus have been indicated in outline. Like his 
rivals the Stoics, he made his appeal to the world 
primarily as a moral teacher, an inquirer whose aim 
was to deal comprehensively and systematically with 
moral problems. To this inquiry the study of na- 
ture, which will occupy us in the next chapter, was 
subordinate. He had convinced himself that the 
main fruit of philosophy consisted in happiness of 
life and that philosophy was successful just in so 
far as this was promoted. This aspect of the system 
will become more apparent if we now consider the 
remarkable collection of its more important tenets, 
which has come down to us in the form of some forty 
isolated quotations from his voluminous writings. 
Whether Epicurus himself made this collection or 
whether it was formed by his disciples cannot now 
be precisely determined. At a very early time it 
obtained a wide circulation among his followers, 
who were ever afterward recommended to commit 
to memory this collection of golden maxims as well 
as other shorter or longer epitomes of the master's 
teaching. The importance attached to these authori- 
tative pronouncements must be our excuse for re- 
producing the greater part of them, although it will 
be obvious that except the first, which lays the 
foundation for his views upon religion, and the 
twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth, 
which deal with his theory of knowledge, they are of 
an ethical character and must therefore simply 
recapitulate the ethical theory which we have al- 
ready attempted to expound. The following, then, 
are the main tenets or golden maxims of Epicurus: 1 
I. A blessed and eternal being has no trouble 
itself and brings no trouble upon any other being; 

1 The golden maxims are given in Usener, Epicurea, pp. 71 sqq. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 185 

hence it is exempt from movements of anger and 
favour, for every such movement implies weakness. 

II. Death is nothing to us; for the body, when 
it has been resolved into its elements, has no feeling, 
and that which has no feeling is nothing to us. 

III. The magnitude of pleasures is limited by 
the removal of all pain. Wherever there is pleasure, 
so long as it is present, there is no pain either of body 
or of mind or both. 

IV. Continuous pain does not last long in the 
flesh, and pain, if extreme, is present a very short 
time, and even that degree of pain which barely 
outweighs pleasure in the flesh does not occur for 
many days together. Illnesses of long duration 
even permit of an excess of pleasure over pain in the 
flesh. 

V. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without 
living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible 
to live wisely and well and justly without living 
pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, 
when, for instance, the man does not live wisely, 
though he lives well and justly, it is impossible fof 
him to live a pleasant life. 

VI. As far as concerns protection from other 
men, any means of procuring this was a natural good. 

VII. Some men sought to become famous and 
renowned, thinking that thus they would make 
themselves secure against their fellow-men. If, 
then, the life of such persons really was secure, they 
attained natural good; if, however, it was insecure, 
they have not attained the end which by nature's 
own promptings they originally sought. 

VIII. No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things 
which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances 
many times greater than the pleasures themselves. 



186 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

IX. If all pleasure had been capable of accumu- 
lation, if this had gone on not only in time, but all 
over the frame or, at any rate, the principal parts of 
man's nature, there would not have been any differ- 
ence between one pleasure and another as, in fact, 
there now is. 

X. If the objects which are productive of pleas- 
ures to profligate persons really freed them from 
fears of the mind — the fears, I mean, inspired by 
celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of 
death, the fear of pain — if, further, they taught them 
to limit their desires, we should not have any reason 
to censure such persons, for they would then be filled 
with pleasure to overflowing on all sides and would 
be exempt from all pain, whether of body or mind, 
that is, from all evil. 

XL If we had never been molested by alarms 
at celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by 
the misgiving that death somehow affects us, nor 
by neglect of the proper limits of pains and desires, 
we should have had no need to study natural 
science. 

XII. It would be impossible to banish fear on 
matters of the highest importance if a man did not 
know the nature of the whole universe but lived in 
dread of what the legends tell us. Hence, without 
the study of nature there was no enjoyment of un- 
mixed pleasures. 

XIII. There would be no advantage in providing 
security against our fellow-men so long as we were 
alarmed by occurrences over our heads or beneath 
the earth, or in general by whatever happens in the 
infinite void. 

XIV. When tolerable security against our fellow- 
men is attained, then on a basis of power arises most 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 187 

genuine bliss, to wit, the security of a private life 
withdrawn from the multitude. 

XV. Nature's wealth has its bounds and is easy 
to procure, but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to 
an infinite distance. 

XVI. Fortune but slightly crosses the wise man's 
path; his greatest and highest interests are directed 
by reason throughout the course of life. 

XVII. The just man enjoys the greatest peace of 
mind, the unjust is full of the utmost disquietude. 

XVIII. Pleasure in the flesh admits no increase 
when once the pain of want has been removed; 
after that it only admits of variation. The limit of 
pleasure in the mind is obtained by calculating the 
pleasures themselves and the contrary pains, which 
cause the mind the greatest alarms. 

XIX. Infinite time and finite time hold an equal 
amount of pleasure, if we measure the limits of that 
pleasure by reason. 

XX. The flesh assumes the limits of pleasure to 
be infinite, and only infinite time would satisfy it. But 
the mind, grasping in thought what the end and 
limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of 
futurity, procures a complete and perfect life and 
has no longer any need of infinite time. Neverthe- 
less, it does not shun pleasure, and even in the hour 
of death, when ushered out of existence by circum- 
stances, the mind does not fail to enjoy the best 
life. 

XXI. He who understands the limits of life 
knows how easy it is to procure enough to remove 
the pain of want and make the whole of life complete 
and perfect. Hence he has no longer any need of 
things which are not to be won save by conflict and 
struggle. 



188 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

XXII. We must take into account as the end all 
that really exists and all clear evidence of sense to 
which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything 
will be full of uncertainty and confusion. 

XXIII. If you fight against all your sensations 
you will have no standard to which to refer, and thus 
no means of judging even those sensations which you 
pronounce false. 

XXIV. If you reject absolutely any single sen- 
sation without stopping to discriminate between that 
which is matter of opinion and awaits further con- 
firmation and that which is already present, whether 
in sensation or in feeling or in any mental appre- 
hension, you will throw into confusion even the rest 
of your sensations by your groundless belief, so as 
to reject the truth altogether. If you hastily affirm 
as true all that awaits confirmation in ideas based 
on opinion, as well as that which does not, you will 
not escape error, as you will be taking sides in every 
question involving truth and error. 

XXV. If you do not on every separate occasion 
refer each of your actions to the chief end of nature, 
but if instead of this in the act of choice or avoidance 
you swerve aside to some other end, your acts will 
not be consistent with your theories. 

XXVI. Some desires lead to no pain when they 
remain ungratified. All such desires are unnecessary, 
and the longing is easily got rid of when the thing 
desired is difficult to procure or when the desires 
seem likely to produce harm. 

XXVII. Of all the means which are procured 
by wisdom to insure happiness throughout the whole 
of life, by far the most important is the acquisition 
of friends. 

XXVIII. The same conviction, which inspires 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 189 

confidence that nothing we have to fear is eternal or 
even of long duration, also enables us to see that even 
in our limited life nothing enhances our security so 
much as friendship. 

XXIX. Of our desires, some are natural and 
necessary; others are natural, but not necessary; 
others, again, are neither natural nor necessary, but 
are due to groundless opinion. 

XXX. Some natural desires, again, entail no 
pain when not gratified, though the objects are 
vehemently pursued. These desires also are due to 
groundless opinion, and when they are not got rid 
of, it is not because of their own nature, but because 
of the man's groundless opinion. 

XL. 1 Those who could best insure the confidence 
that they would be safe from their neighbours, being 
thus in possession of the surest guarantee, passed 
the most agreeable life in each other's society, and 
their enjoyment of the fullest intimacy was such that, 
if one of them died before his time, the survivors did 
not lament his death as if it called for pity. 

To the foregoing we may add a few ethical frag- 
ments of Diogenes of (Enoanda, which may or may 
not be actual words of Epicurus: 2 

"Nothing is so productive of cheerfulness as to 
abstain from meddling and not to engage in difficult 
undertakings, nor force yourself to do something 
beyond your power. For all this involves your 
nature in tumults." 3 

"The main part of happiness is the disposition 
which is under our own control. Service in the field is 



1 Numbers XXXI to XXXIX, which deal with justice, have already 
been quoted in this chapter, pp. 177 sqq. 

2 See Diogenis (Enoandensis Fragmenta (Ioh. William), p. xi. 

3 Diogenes of (Enoanda, Fragment LVI (William). 



190 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

hard work, and others hold command. Public speak- 
ing abounds in heart-throbs and in anxiety whether 
you can carry conviction. Why, then, pursue an ob- 
ject like this, which is at the disposal of others ?" * 

"Not nature, which is the same in all, makes men 
noble or ignoble, but their actions and dispositions." 2 

"Wealth beyond the requirements of nature is no 
more benefit to men than water to a vessel which is 
full. Both alike must be supposed to overflow. We 
can look upon another's possessions without per- 
turbation and can enjoy purer pleasure than they, 
for we are free from their arduous struggle." 3 

"Nature forces us to utter an exclamation when 
groaning under pain, but to indulge in lamentations 
because we cannot rejoice in the ranks of the healthy 
and prosperous is the result of groundless opinion." 4 

It is one thing to trace the outlines of an ethical 
system; it is quite another to comprehend its inner 
spirit. When a philosopher's works have not come 
down to us, it is some compensation if some of his 
memorable and characteristic utterances have been 
preserved, because they impressed themselves upon 
contemporaries and on posterity. Epicurus was a 
fearless and original thinker, contending at great 
odds against the sympathies and prejudices of the 
world. It is worth while to collect a few of his 
striking sayings in order, if possible, to get some idea 
of the workings of his mind. 

"You must become a slave to philosophy if you 
would gain true freedom." 5 

"The most precious fruit of independence and 
plain living is freedom." 6 

1 lb., Fragment LVII. 2 lb., Fragment LIX. 3 lb., Fragment LX. 
l Ib., Fragment LXI. 5 Epicurea, p. 160, 25. 

6 Wotke, Wiener Studien, X, p. 197, sent. 77. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 191 

"Let us completely drive out evil habits as if they 
were wicked men who have for long wrought us 
great harm." * 

"Among the other ills which attend folly is this: 
it is always beginning to live." 2 

"We are born once; twice we cannot be born, and 
for everlasting we must be non-existent. But thou, 
who art not master of the morrow, puttest off the 
right time. Procrastination is the ruin of life for all; 
and, therefore, each of us is hurried and unprepared 
at death." 3 

"A foolish life is uncomfortable and restless; it 
is wholly engrossed with the future." 4 

"It is absurd to run to death from weariness of 
life when your style of life has forced you to run to 
death. What so absurd as to court death when you 
have made life restless through fear of death ?" 5 

"Learn betimes to die or, if thou like it better, to 
pass over to the gods." 6 

"He who is least in need of the morrow will meet 
the morrow most pleasantly." 7 

"Vain is the discourse of that philosopher by 
which no human sufFering is healed." 8 

"We must both study philosophy and manage our 
household affairs at the same time, and use the rest 
of our resources, and never cease to proclaim the 
maxims of true wisdom." 9 

"How fleeting a thing is all the good and evil of 
the multitude! But wisdom has naught to do with 
Fortune." 10 

1 lb., p. 194, sent. 46. 

2 Epicurea, p. 308, 19; cj. Wotke, I. c, p. 196, sent. 60. 

3 lb., p. 162, 4. 

4 lb., p. 307, 19. 5 lb., p. 309, 26. 6 lb., p. 162, 18. 7 lb., p. 307, 9. 
8 lb., 169, 14. 9 Wotke, Wiener Studien, X, p. 194, sent. 41. 

10 Epicurea, p. 307, 3. 



192 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

"The repose of most men is a lethargy and their 
activity a madness." * 

"Though he is being tortured on the rack, the wise 
man is still happy." 2 

"If the wise man is being burned, if he is being tor- 
tured — nay, within the very bull of Phalaris, he will 
say : ' How delightful this is ! How little care I for it ! ' " 3 

Many critics before and after the time of Cicero 
concur with Cicero himself in treating this famous 
utterance as unjustifiable exaggeration or even as 
mere sentimental rhodomontade. But a French 
scholar 4 has recently called attention to a remark- 
able fact. Modern psychology seems to show that, 
given the right set of conditions, Epicurus was, after 
all, right. Even now we know very little of the ex- 
tent to which the mind, under the obsession of cer- 
tain ideas, can ignore or even be unconscious of what 
goes on in the body. 

"It is the wise man alone who will feel gratitude 
to his friends, but to them equally whether they are 
present or absent." 5 

"If you live by nature, you will never be poor; if 
by opinion, you will never be rich." 6 

"Great wealth is but poverty when matched with 
the law of nature." 7 

"If any one thinks his own not to be most ample, 
he may become lord of the whole world and will yet 
be wretched." 8 

"With many the acquisition of riches is not an end 
to their miseries but only a change." 9 

1 Wotke, Wiener Studien, X, p. 192, sent. 11. 

2 Epicurea, p. 338, 1. 3 lb., p. 338, 4 sqq. 

4 V. Brochard, in Uannee philosophique for 1903. The article is en- 
titled La Morale d' Epicure. See especially pp. 8-12. 

8 Epicurea, p. 335, 1. 6 lb., p. 161, 19. 7 lb., p. 303, 24. 

8 lb., p. 302, 29. 9 lb., p. 304, 23; cf. ib., 304, 19. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 193 

"The perturbation of the soul is not removed nor 
any considerable joy produced by the possession 
either of the greatest wealth or of honour and reputa- 
tion with the multitude or by anything else due to 
indeterminate causes." * 

"Happiness and blessedness do not consort with 
extent of wealth or weight of responsibilities or 
public office or power, but with painlessness, with 
mildness of feeling, and that disposition of soul 
which defines what is according to nature." 2 

"Trust me, your words (professions of philosophy) 
will sound grander in a common bed and a rough 
coverlet; they will not be merely spoken then, they 
will be proved true." 3 

"The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salva- 
tion. 4 

"The first duty of salvation is to preserve our 
vigour and to guard against the defiling of our life 
in consequence of maddening desires." 5 

" It is an evil thing to live in necessity, but there is 
no necessity to live in necessity." 6 

"Let us not accuse the flesh as the cause of great 
evils, neither let us attribute our distresses to out- 
ward things. Let us rather seek the causes of this 
distress within our souls, and let us cut off* every 
vain craving and hope for things which are fleeting, 
and let us become wholly masters of ourselves. For 
a man is unhappy either from fear or from unlimited 
and vain desires, but if a man bridle these he may 
secure for himself the blessing of reason. In so far 
as thou art in distress, thou art in distress because 

1 Wotke, Wiener Studien, X, p. 198, sent. 81. 

2 Usener, Epicurea, p. 325, 30. 

3 Epicurea, p. 162, 25. * lb., p. 318, 12. 
5 Wotke, Wiener Studien, p. 198, sent. 80. 

8 Epicurea, p. 306, 7; also Wotke, Wiener Studien, p. 191, sent. 9. 



194 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

thou hast forgotten Nature, for thou layest upon thy- 
self fears and desires which have no limits. And it 
were better for thee to have no fears and to lie upon 
a bed of straw, than to have a golden couch and 
lavish table, yet to be troubled in mind." 1 

"Give thanks to Nature, the blessed, because she 
hath made necessary things easy to procure, while 
things hard to be obtained are not necessary." 2 

"By the love of true philosophy every troublous 
and painful desire is destroyed." 3 

" If you wish to make Pythocies happy, add not to 
his riches, but take away from his desires." 4 

"No one of the foolish is content with what he has, 
but rather he is distressed on account of what he has 
not. Just as those who are fever-stricken are always 
athirst, owing to the severity of their disease, and 
desire things of the most opposite kinds, so those 
who are sick in soul are always in need of everything, 
and through their excessive craving they fall head- 
long into manifold desires." 5 

"Nothing is enough for him to whom enough is 
too little." 6 

"Cheerful poverty is an honourable thing." 7 

"Having bread and water, I revel in the pleasure 
of the body, and I loathe the pleasures of costly 
living, not on their own account, but because of the 
inconveniences which follow them." 8 

"We strive after independence, not that in all 
cases we may use that which is cheap and plain, but 
that we may have no anxiety as to such matters." 9 

"We must select some good man and keep him 

1 Epicurea, p. 291, 9; 305, 33; 161, 29; 163, 4. 

2 lb., p. 300, 26. 3 lb., p. 296, 12. * lb., p. 143, 3. 

6 lb., p. 300, 12. 6 Wotke, Wiener Studien, p. 197, sent. 68. 

7 Epicurea, p. 303, 8. 8 lb., p. 156, 4. ' lb., p. 345, 30. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 195 

ever before our eyes, that so we may live as if he 
were beholding us, and may do everything as if in 
his sight." l 

"Do everything as if Epicurus saw you." 2 

"Reverence for the wise man is a great good for 
the reverer." 3 

"The wise man will not punish his slaves, but will 
take pity on them, and will show consideration to 
any that are zealous." 4 

"Turn not away from the prayer of thine enemy 
when he is in distress, yet take heed to thyself, for 
he is no better than a dog." 5 

"Nobility is best brought out in wisdom and 
friendship, whereof the one, wisdom, is an immortal; 
the other, friendship, a mortal good." 6 

"We ought to look round for people to eat and 
drink with before we look for something to eat and 
drink; feeding without a friend is the life of a lion 
or a wolf." 7 

"Sweet is the memory of the friend who is dead." 8 

Upon politics and the pursuit of fame Epicurus is 
very plain-spoken. 

"I never wished to please the people; for that 
which I know, the people does not approve; and 
what the people approves, that I know not." 9 

"Man is not by nature adapted for living in civic 
communities and in civilisation." 10 

"The wise man will be fond of living in the 
country." n 

I Epicurea, p. 163, 18. Compare the similar precept of Epictetus 
given above, Chapter IV, p. 115. 2 lb., p. 163, 26. 

3 Wotke, Wiener Studien, X, p. 193, sent. 32. 

4 Epicurea, p. 335, 14. 6 lb., p. 164, 21. 

6 Wotke, /. c, p. 197, sent. 78. 7 Epicurea, p. 324, 25. 

8 lb., p. 164, 6. B lb., p. 157, 26. 10 lb., p. 327, 9. 

II Ib„ p- 33 1 . 5- 



196 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

"The wise man will take just so much thought 
for fame as to avoid being despised." x 

" I have said this not to many persons, but to thee, 
for we are a large enough theatre one to the other." 2 

"Amid so many blessings, it has done us no harm 
that our glorious Greece not only does not know us, 
but has hardly heard of us." 3 

"Epicurus spurns under his feet the achievements 
of Themistocles and Miltiades, and makes them 
cheap. . . . The Epicureans name statesmen only 
to ridicule them and to destroy their fame, saying 
that Epaminondas had some merit in him, but it 
was small or 'wee' — such is the word they use — 
while they nickname him 'Iron Bowels,' and ask 
what possessed him to go marching through the 
middle of the Peloponnesus, and why he did not sit 
at home with a woollen cap on his head." 4 

But Epicurus was no harder on the great Athenians 
than Plato had been before him in the Gorgias. 
The following extracts are controversial and directed 
against the Stoics: 

"Epicurus makes a jest of our distinctions between 
'what is honourable' and 'what is base,' and says we 
are taken up with words and utter mere empty 
sounds. He says that he does not understand what 
'honourable conduct' means, if it be not a thing 
accompanied by pleasure, unless, perchance, it mean 
what is praised by the popular breath. The praise 
of men, Epicurus says, is sought after for the sake of 
pleasure." 5 

"Ask Epicurus, and he will say that moderate pain 
is a greater evil than the utmost disgrace." 6 

1 Epicurea, p. 331, 12. 2 lb., p. 63, 7. 3 lb., p. 58, 13. 

4 Ib„ p. 329, 13 sqq., 16 sqq. 

6 lb., p. 340, 32 sqq.; 123, 4 sqq. 6 lb., p. 326, 14. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 197 

"Courage is a thing enslaved to fashions, and to 
the blame of men, and shaped by foreign opinion and 
notions; you practise courage, and you encounter 
hardships and dangers, not because you have no fear 
of them, but because you are still more afraid of those 
other things." l 

Here again we are reminded of Plato, who in the 
Phcedo disparages civic or popular courage (that is, the 
virtue of the ordinary citizen as distinct from that of 
the philosopher) on precisely the same grounds, that 
it is inspired by fear. But there is this difference, 
that Plato, who upheld the absolute value of true 
courage, as of the other virtues, would cultivate and 
develop even its imperfect and inadequate manifesta- 
tions; while Epicurus, who denied the absolute value 
of virtue, and made it simply a means to pleasure, 
is free to reject it whenever it does not conduce to 
that end. 

This chapter may fitly close with a few more glean- 
ings from the sayings of Epicurus: 

"There is no need to spoil the present by longing 
for what is not; rather reflect that even what you 
have was beyond your expectations." 

"Envy no one; the good do not merit it, while as 
for the wicked, the more they prosper, the more harm 
they do to themselves." 

"It is vain to ask the gods for what we can procure 
for ourselves." 

"Confront every desire with this question: What 
shall I gain by gratifying this desire and what shall 
I lose by suppressing it ?" 

"The man of tranquil mind causes no annoyance 
either to himself or to others." 2 

1 Epicurea, p. 317, lines 4 sqq. of Notes. 

1 Wotke, Wiener Studien, X, pp. 194 sqq., sentt. 35, 53, 65, 71, 79. 



198 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

It is worth while to make an effort to discover the 
real Epicurus, to understand what manner of man he 
was. Our best materials are his own writings. The 
letter to Menceceus has already been translated; that 
to Herodotus will occupy us in the next chapter, per- 
haps to the weariness and impatience of the reader. 
These letters together with other fragmentary records 
certainly convey the impression of a strong person- 
ality. We see that Epicurus had a logical mind, was 
a great systematiser, belonged, in short, to the class of 
daring and self-confident innovators. Like others of 
this class, he felt that he had a mission, and under 
great difficulties, in face of much opposition, laboured 
with unremitting industry to accomplish a self-im- 
posed task. It may not be amiss to compare him 
with other such men. If amid great differences 
points of resemblance are disclosed, these may enable 
us to fill in the outlines of our mental picture and to 
form a better judgment of Epicurus himself. For 
this purpose we select two eminent modern philoso- 
phers, Jeremy Bentham and Herbert Spencer, men 
who far surpassed the Athenian sage in the greatness 
of their aims and achievements, but yet may be said, 
in a sense, to have continued his work and to have 
sustained, in later ages and under altered conditions, 
the same cause. 

Bentham lived the life of a recluse as much as 
Epicurus. The great influence he exercised was due 
solely to his writings. We are told that his constitu- 
tion was weakly in childhood, but strengthened with 
advancing years so as to allow him to get through an 
incredible amount of sedentary labour, while he re- 
tained to the last the fresh and cheerful temperament 
of a boy. This might be said almost word for word 
of Epicurus. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 199 

Bentham was able to gather around him a group 
of congenial friends and pupils; so did Epicurus. 
Though not a morose visionary, he thought general 
society a waste of time, disliked poetry as misrepre- 
sentation, but gave good dinners, delighted in country 
sights, and in making others happy. We have seen 
that each one of these traits is reproduced in our 
accounts of Epicurus. When Rush, at that time 
the American minister in England, visited Bentham 
at the Hermitage, he tells us that he was received 
with the simplicity of a philosopher amid shrubberies 
and flowers, green and large shaded walks. So, we 
may well believe, were visitors received by Epicurus 
in his gardens. Rush further records that Bentham 
had the benevolence of manner suited to the phil- 
anthropy of his mind. The visitor to Epicurus 
would, we may be sure, have said the same. Ben- 
tham's conversation revealed a typically logical as 
opposed to a historical mind, a contempt for the past, 
and a wish to be clear of all association with it. 
The same trait is suggested by what we learn of 
Epicurus, who evidently believed he was inaugurating 
a new era in which the search for happiness might 
at last be prosecuted with success. 

Turning now to Spencer, one of the most striking 
features of his character was the small weight he 
attached to authority or, to be more exact, his utter 
disregard of it. Professed apologists admit this. 1 
The prominence of the same trait in Epicurus is 
unmistakable. As we have seen, he avowed that he 
was self-taught, and did not scruple to assail the most 
eminent of his predecessors with merciless ridicule. 
As Spencer grew up to manhood, his constitutional 
proneness to set authority at defiance became, we are 

1 Lije, by Duncan, c. XXIX, p. 489. 



200 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

told, less an instinctive impulse and more a matter 
of principle. In his thinking, as well as in his acting, 
he set authority at naught. That with Epicurus also 
contempt for authority was a matter of principle is 
very obvious. "All my life long," writes Spencer, " I 
have been a thinker and not a reader, being able to 
say with Hobbes that ' if I had read as much as other 
men I should have known as little.'" x Epicurus 
would have indorsed this sentiment, as Heraclitus 
had done before him. But Spencer's disregard of 
authority was, we are told, a disregard of personal 
authority only, and was accompanied by a whole- 
hearted fealty to principles. So too emphatically 
with Epicurus. Spencer's father wrote of him: "It 
appears to me that the laws of nature are to him what 
revealed religion is to us, and that any wilful infrac- 
tion of those laws is to him as much a sin as to us is 
disbelief in what is revealed." 2 His biographer in- 
sists that though Spencer did not accept the dogmas 
of any creed, he was, in the truest sense, religious. 
"To pay homage to royal persons, while showing 
little respect for the principles that underlie human 
society, drew from him the reproof: ' It is so disloyal.' 
To bend the knee and utter praise to a Divine person, 
while ignoring the principles of religion and morality, 
met with a similar condemnation: 'It is so irre- 
ligious.' " 3 This may help us better to understand 
the position of Epicurus on the subject of religion. 
With all his outspoken condemnation of the prevailing 
polytheism, he claimed for himself and his followers 
the possession of the only true and genuine piety. 
Indeed, the approximation is yet closer than at first 
appears. No one can read his own fragmentary 
utterances, much less the splendid poem of Lucretius, 

1 Duncan, p. 490. a lb., p. 491. 3 lb., p. 490. 



EPICURUS AND HEDONISM 201 

without perceiving a deep undertone of religious 
fervour. It was impious, they held, to acquiesce in 
the popular faith, but it is not in the reverence due to 
the shadowy deities of the intermundia that their 
religious spirit finds its true manifestation. The laws 
of nature, fcedera natures, excite, especially in the 
Roman poet, a higher emotion, a more reverent awe. 
The comparison holds good of less pleasing traits. 
Spencer, his biographer admits, had an abundant 
share of self-confidence. "The possible failure of 
any of his many inventions was seldom taken into 
account. His doctrines were from the outset deemed 
secure against attack, notwithstanding repeated ex- 
periences of having to modify or enlarge or restrict 
his previous expositions. On Spencer, accustomed 
to think and act for himself, 'the other side' did not 
obtrude." * It is hardly necessary to point out that all 
this is eminently true of Epicurus, whose confidence 
in himself again and again becomes arrogance, while 
his dogmatism was not "occasional" but a permanent 
habit. Had this not been the case, he would never 
have rejected the natural necessity of Democritus 
with such scorn, would never have excogitated the 
declination of the atom, to say nothing of other less 
serious errors. Galton writes of Spencer: "He 
loved to dogmatise from a priori axioms" — how true 
this is of Epicurus — "and to criticise, and I soon 
found that the way to get the best from him was to be 
patient and not to oppose." 2 The subservience of 
the Epicurean brotherhood to the master was pro- 
verbial in antiquity; the man who expected his 
disciples to get his doctrines by heart and memorise 
the epitomes he prepared for their use must have had 
more than Spencer's share of dogmatism. But the 

1 Duncan, p. 492. 2 lb., p. 501. 



202 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

two resembled each other in more important matters, 
in the passion for systematisation, the determination 
to deduce, so far as possible, all the consequences of 
one wide-reaching principle; again, in freedom from 
worldly ambition and in whole-hearted devotion to 
their task. Spencer often spoke, we are told, as if he 
had a mission, a message to deliver to mankind. We 
have noticed the same trait in Epicurus and it is a 
clue to much of his conduct. 

No one can be better aware than the present writer 
that the foregoing coincidences are useful only by 
way of illustration and must be taken cum grano salts. 
Historical parallels, however interesting, are apt to be 
purely fanciful. At the best they have little inde- 
pendent value, just because so much depends upon 
the point of view from which the comparison is made. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ATOMIC THEORY 

Science has been defined as ordered knowledge of 
phenomena and the relations between them. There 
can be no doubt that the beginnings of modern 
science go back to the Greeks; in certain depart- 
ments, such as geometry, astronomy, and medicine, 
the affiliation and transmission of ideas is particu- 
larly well attested. We must not, however, over- 
look the great difference between the position of the 
Greeks and that of the modern inquirer. The latter 
has at his command instruments and appliances of 
wonderful accuracy and precision for making ob- 
servations and experiments. The ancients had no 
microscope, no telescope, no scientific apparatus of 
any sort save the carpenter's rule and a pair of com- 
passes. In our days every new theory can be 
directly tested by comparison with the store of facts 
already accumulated through the ages. With the 
Greeks this was not so. So scanty was their knowl- 
edge that they seldom had at hand any means of 
checking a new theory beyond the phenomena 
which it was invented to explain. Under such cir- 
cumstances, it was inevitable that conjecture and 
discussion should usurp the part now played by 
observation and experiment. In science then, as in 
metaphysics now, each thinker had his own system, 
starting anew with first principles and reaching con- 
clusions which had no more validity than the prem- 

203 



204 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

isses. The reader must be careful, then, not to con- 
fuse ancient atomism with the modern atomic theory, 
which from the time of Dalton has found its place in 
the text-books of chemistry. The modern concep- 
tion of atoms and molecules serves to explain certain 
definite and detailed facts of chemistry arid physics. 
The theory is the best working hypothesis which the 
science of Dalton's time could excogitate for explain- 
ing them, and until the discovery of Rontgen rays 
and the radio-active properties of certain substances 
it held the field. What modifications it will undergo 
in the physics of the future no man of science will be 
bold enough to predict. The modern atomic theory, 
then, was suggested by and meant to explain cer- 
tain indisputable definite facts of chemical com- 
bination and gaseous volume. But these facts were 
unknown to the ancient Atomists. They put for- 
ward their theory at a time when men's minds were 
busy, not with the laws of combination of seventy or 
eighty known elements, but with more fundamental 
and far-reaching problems. They were in quest of 
some permanent and primary element which by its 
transformations would account for the variety of 
nature. Controversy raged over the question, more 
ontological than physical, whether one such primary 
element should be assumed or more than one or an 
infinite number. Some thought they had discovered 
it in water, some in air, some in fire. It might seem 
that no progress could be made on these lines, yet 
gradually there emerged the conception of primary 
matter with three properties. It must be (i) inde- 
structible or quantitatively constant, (2) immutable 
or qualitatively constant, and (3) impenetrable. 
Empedocles assumed four elements, earth, water, 
air, and fire; Anaxagoras, an infinity of qualita- 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 205 

tively unlike particles. Leucippus, the earliest of the 
Atomists, postulated an infinite number of primary 
particles, homogeneous and indivisible, but quantita- 
tively different, that is, differing only in shape and 
size. Already Empedocles had derived the endless 
difference in things known to sense from the varying 
combination and separation of his four elements; 
Leucippus now resolved the qualitative differences 
of things into quantitative differences, that is, into 
varieties of position, order, and arrangement of com- 
bining atoms, and the different sizes and shapes of 
the atoms themselves. 

Of any scientific theory we are entitled to ask: 
Is it fruitful ? Does it point out the way for further 
inquiry ? Does it explain one set of phenomena 
in terms of something simpler ? The atomic the- 
ory possessed these merits in a high degree. Tried 
by every test, from the stand-point of modern sci- 
ence it evinces its superiority to all its rivals. And 
yet it was never popular; we may even say it was 
unpopular and discredited in antiquity. In this re- 
spect it shared the fate of that other great dis- 
covery of the Greeks, the heliocentric hypothesis 
in astronomy. Both alike were uncongenial Greek 
prejudices and made their appearance long before 
the world at large was prepared to appreciate them; 
for the path of progress is not always a straight 
line, but often more nearly resembles a spiral. 
Whatever the cause, the mechanical explanation of 
nature was abandoned by Plato and Aristotle, the 
acutest intellects of the time, in favour of a teleological 
system. It was no slight feat to have reduced the 
world of physical change to modes of matter in 
motion. But to their main hypothesis the Atomists 
attached certain corollaries not so well calculated to 



206 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

command universal assent. Body, they held, is the 
sole reality; nothing incorporeal exists. Motion, 
again, was taken to be the sole form of energy. And 
here we may be permitted to remark that the history 
of modern physical theories as to the constitution of 
the sensible world is little more than an account of 
the way in which energy has gradually taken its 
place alongside of matter as an equally real thing 
and has tended more and more to replace it altogether. 
But to the early Atomists in the infancy of science 
matter and energy were still undistinguished under 
the single conception of body; body was the form in 
which both were imagined. The existence of body 
is attested by the senses, but motion, in the view of 
Leucippus and his great follower Democritus, was 
inconceivable apart from empty space or void, to 
which they also attributed existence. Here, again, 
we may note that the meaning of the term existence 
is enlarged, for the mode of existence of space is not 
the same as that of body. Moreover, the existence 
of empty space or vacuum is not directly attested by 
the senses, but reached by reasoning. It is instruc- 
tive to compare the procedure of those acute reasoners 
the Eleatics, who undoubtedly influenced all the 
physical theories subsequent to them. They argued 
thus: Motion is impossible without a vacuum; 
there is no vacuum; ergo, there is no motion. Ac- 
cordingly, the Eleatic Parmenides regarded the 
phenomenal world of change and motion as mere 
illusive appearance. In his view there is no other 
ultimate reality but the one immutable Being. 
Leucippus and Democritus may be supposed to 
argue from the same premiss thus: Motion is im- 
possible without a vacuum; there is undoubtedly 
motion, for the senses attest it; ergo, there is vacuum, 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 207 

or empty space. But this is a conclusion of reason, 
precisely as the Eleatic one immutable Being is a 
conclusion of reason. The senses no more tell us 
directly of the one than of the other. Thus, on the 
possibility of motion and the existence of void, 
Eleatics and Atomists are diametrically opposed; but 
in spite of this the atom of Democritus inherits most 
of the characteristics which the Eleatics claimed for 
their one immutable Being. 

This system Epicurus found ready to his hand, 
and with this he was satisfied. Only modifications 
in detail were required to adapt it to his purpose. 
The writings of Leucippus and Democritus, with the 
exception of a few fragments, have perished. Al- 
most all our knowledge in detail of their speculations 
is derived from the form given to them by Epicurus 
and by his follower, the Roman Lucretius, in his 
celebrated poem, On the Nature of Things. That 
marvellous work has made a deep and lasting 
impression on the modern world, particularly on 
men of science. They have vied with one another 
in extolling the poet's firm grasp of scientific prin- 
ciples, his clear conception of law in the physical 
universe, his sympathetic and penetrating observa- 
tion, his unrivalled power of bringing together scat- 
tered facts and embracing them in one comprehensive 
view, his bold use of the scientific imagination, his in- 
sight into multitudinous hidden processes and mo- 
tions on too small a scale to be seen, which yet in 
every way conform to the processes and motions on 
a larger scale attested by our senses. It was natural, 
therefore, that Lucretius himself or, at any rate, his 
master, Epicurus, should be proclaimed as the one 
true scientific thinker of antiquity. But it is not 
properly to them that such praise belongs. The 



208 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

system unfolded in the poem did not originate with 
the poet or with his master. So far as we can judge, 
they added very little of real worth; some of their 
alterations were for the worse, and in one particular 
they came very near to imperilling the very founda- 
tions of the system. The credit to which Epicurus 
is justly entitled is that of having made a wise selec- 
tion. Among conflicting theories he chose to stand 
by the mechanical conception of the physical uni- 
verse, when it had fallen into disfavour, and unhesi- 
tatingly rejected the fashionable teleology. His doing 
so testifies to his acute intellect and critical insight, 
but still more to the honesty, fearlessness, and inde- 
pendence with which he invariably followed his con- 
victions. He also popularised the system he adopted 
and lent it a new lease of life. So much will be 
readily admitted, but an impartial estimate of his 
services cannot go beyond this. He made no dis- 
coveries in science himself, nor did any Epicurean 
after him. He rather discouraged the prosecution 
of physical inquiries of any sort beyond a certain 
point. His attitude to natural science as a whole 
deserves careful consideration. He takes it up 
because, if we are to be happy, we must be released 
from mental trouble, above all from groundless 
fears, more particularly the terrors of superstition, 
the fear of the gods, and the dread of death. With- 
out this strong impelling motive Epicurus would 
never have engaged in the study of nature at all. 
His sole aim is to convince himself that these terrors 
are unreal and imaginary, and if, incidentally, he dis- 
covers a great deal about the constitution of the 
world and man's place in nature, it is because he 
cannot otherwise banish these terrors from the mind. 
Scientific investigation is permissible only so far as it 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 209 

conduces to this end by laying down the true place 
of man in the system of things. Beyond this there 
is no need to go. The laboratories, museums, ob- 
servatories, and other appliances of modern times 
for research and discovery, would thus be con- 
demned in anticipation as superfluous. Knowledge 
in itself and for its own sake he regarded as of lit- 
tle worth. And this was no mere passing phase; 
it expressed the man's fundamental and settled con- 
viction. 

Reference has already been made to certain icono- 
clastic tendencies of Epicurus. We have seen that 
he disparaged the education which he, like other 
Greeks, had received at school. Literature fared no 
better. The whole poetic art he abhorred as "the 
deadly bait of fiction." In this sweeping condem- 
nation he agrees with one phase of Plato's many- 
sided development, represented in the tenth book of 
the Republic. In banishing the poets both philos- 
ophers were actuated by the same narrow fanatical 
spirit which led the Puritans to shut up the theatres 
in the interests of morality. The rejection of mathe- 
matical studies is, at first sight, harder to explain. 
The fact, however, is certain. Before he became an 
Epicurean, Polyasnus had made great progress in 
mathematics; after his conversion we are told that 
he gave them up and unlearned the science. The 
reason alleged is that in the view of Epicurus, geom- 
etry, astronomy, and kindred sciences rested on false 
premisses, and could not, therefore, lead to true re- 
sults. His concern was with the real world, in which 
he could nowhere find points, lines, and surfaces, as 
defined by the geometer. Again, he could not 
understand why infinities should not all be equal; 
he invariably treated them as if they were equal. 



210 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

And why were line and surface bound to be con- 
tinuous ? Why could they not be reduced to succes- 
sions or series of discrete, discontinuous magnitudes ? 
The same objection to the foundations of geometry 
had already been made by the sophist Protagoras, 
who in his work on mathematics attacked the hy- 
potheses of the science because they contradicted 
our sensible impressions. Thus Protagoras held that 
there was no such thing in nature as a straight line 
or a perfect circle, and denied that the tangent to a 
sphere touched it only at a single point. If this ob- 
jection were valid, the whole of geometry would be a 
pretended science, which has nothing in real existence 
for its subject-matter. The same line of attack was 
afterward developed by the Sceptics, as we learn 
from Sextus Empiricus. It must be carefully dis- 
tinguished from the reasons for which the antagonistic 
schools of Cynics and Cyrenaics for once united in 
rejecting the mathematical sciences. The ground of 
complaint of these Socratics was the inutility of the 
study. None of its students were made morally 
better by their proficiency. As Aristippus urged, 
caricaturing, if not echoing, the methods of Socrates: 
"Every common mechanic has something to say in his 
craft about good and evil, useful and useless, but 
these practical considerations never enter into the 
purview of the mathematician." Whether Epicurus 
was also moved by these considerations of practical 
utility, we are nowhere informed. Zeno of Sidon, a 
later Epicurean, attacked Euclid on different grounds, 
arguing that the proofs were insufficient and the 
definitions unsuitable, if not unintelligible; where- 
upon the Stoic Posidonius took up the challenge and 
wrote in defence of mathematics. In a similar spirit 
at a later time the Stoic Cleomedes, in a work still 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 211 

extant, defended the current astronomy against Epi- 
curean assaults. 

Epicurus, however, has had his modern cham- 
pions and we will state their case, which is far 
stronger for astronomy than for geometry. Accord- 
ing to them, the rejection of the current astron- 
omy, instead of a reproach, is a crown of glory to 
our philosopher. They call attention to the fact 
that the science which he condemned was not the 
astronomy of to-day, which rests upon exact obser- 
vation and theories universally accepted, apart from 
a handful of earth-flatteners, but something very 
different. In his time such observations of planetary 
movements as had been made were few and imper- 
fect, and astronomy was a mass of conflicting theories, 
a field in which speculation, sometimes of the wild- 
est sort, ran riot. Toward all such speculations he 
adopted an attitude of cautious reserve. He did not 
refuse to entertain any of the discordant explanations 
of celestial phenomena then in vogue, but upon ex- 
amining and comparing them he found no grounds 
for preferring one to the other. Certain assumptions 
granted, they were all more or less probable, they all 
lacked convincing evidence, and Epicurus was de- 
termined to believe nothing of which he was not 
absolutely certain. Experiment being impossible, 
he was content to take up an attitude of suspense, 
excluding no possibility, but waiting for further evi-. 
dence. This modest attitude, it is maintained, is 
more becoming to the true man of science than over- 
hasty speculation, which jumps to conclusions. 
Supposing this apology admitted for the rejection of 
astronomy, what have we to say about the founda- 
tions of geometry ? Here, too, some sort of a case 
may be made out; for the controversy over Euclid, 



212 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

his definitions, his common notions, his postulates, 
and the whole basis of his science, we are reminded, 
is still raging, and we may believe, if we choose, that 
Epicurus, more far-sighted than his contemporaries, 
discerned the weak places in the structure. But a 
simpler explanation is far more probable. In the 
miscellaneous works collected under the name of 
Aristotle, there is a short tract on "Indivisible Lines," 
a model of terse and closely reasoned argument. The 
writer sets forth first the grounds on which such in- 
divisible units of length are assumed by one set of 
disputants, then he proceeds to retail the arguments 
by which another set meet them and attempt to 
refute them. Now the connection between mathe- 
matics and the general theory of the natural world 
which the ancients called physics was very close. 
The indivisible atom was the basis of all Epicurean 
physics. It seems highly probable, then, that Epi- 
curus himself would incline to the assumption of an 
indivisible unit of length, a sort of materialised point. 
If this surmise be correct, he found himself at vari- 
ance with what we may call the orthodox school of 
geometers. Their fundamental notions of line and 
point he could not accept, and, as they were involved 
in the whole of geometry, he would feel bound to 
condemn the science as false. As will hereafter be 
seen, there is some evidence that he did not alto- 
gether accept the continuity of motion, but rather re- 
solved it into a series of progressions, each taking 
place in an instant of time over an indivisible unit of 
space. His denial of continuous corporeal magni- 
tude would of itself suffice to bring him into collision 
with the mathematicians; and this hostility would be 
strengthened if he also inclined to regard space, time, 
and motion as in the ultimate analysis not continuous, 
but discontinuous as made up of discrete minima. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 213 

But, be this as it may, it is high time to inquire 
what scientific principles, if any, our philosopher ad- 
mitted. He was certainly no sceptic. He did not 
hold that every statement is uncertain, because as 
much can be said against it as for it, and, as a neces- 
sary consequence, that all science is founded on 
nothing better than probability. On what general 
principles, then, did he conceive himself entitled to 
assert or believe anything ? This inquiry, prelimi- 
nary to his physics, he himself entitled Canonic, 
because it dealt with the canon or rule of evidence. 
First, every statement must relate to what is given, 
to facts or phenomena. Epicurus is not concerned 
with the grounds on which from one proposition we 
infer another, the subject of Aristotle's Analytic, but 
with the far more fundamental question: On what 
ultimate grounds is a statement of fact based ? All 
phenomena are either immediately certain or not, and 
it is possible to pass from the one region where there 
is immediate certainty to the other region, which 
is not thus immediately certain; in other words, from 
the known to the unknown. Such a process is anal- 
ogous to the modern induction. For deductive logic, 
the theory of the syllogism and definition, Epicurus 
had the utmost contempt. On the other hand, the 
few general and preliminary remarks of which his 
Canonic consists contain the germs of a thorough- 
going inductive logic. The Epicurean theory of the 
universe is built upon this foundation. The existence 
of the phenomenal universe is everywhere assumed. 
Things exist outside us. We know them only through 
sense, which alone gives a conviction of reality. This 
conviction of reality attaches not only to the external 
objects which are perceived, but with equal strength 
to the internal states or feelings, especially the feelings 
of pleasure and pain of which we are conscious. 



214 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

All true belief and assertion, then, must be founded 
upon our sensations and feelings. What we immedi- 
ately perceive and feel, that is true. 

" We must take into account," he says, " what 
really exists, and all clear evidence, to which we re- 
fer our opinions, for otherwise all will be full of 
uncertainty and confusion." " If you fight against 
all your sensations, you will have no standard to 
which to refer and thus no means of judging even 
those sensations which you pronounce false." " If 
you reject absolutely any single sensation without 
stopping to discriminate between that which is mat- 
ter of opinion and awaits further confirmation and 
that which is already present, whether in sensation 
or in feeling or in any mental apprehension, you will 
throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations 
by your groundless belief, so as to reject the test of 
truth altogether. If you hastily affirm as true all 
that awaits confirmation in ideas based on opinion, 
as well as that which does not, you will not escape 
error, as you will be taking sides in every question 
involving truth and error." 1 Or, as Lucretius more 
graphically expresses it: "You will find that from 
the senses first has proceeded the knowledge of the 
true and that the senses cannot be refuted. For 
that which of itself is to be capable of refuting 
things false by true things must from the nature 
of the case be proved to have the higher certainty. 
Well, then, what must fairly be accounted of higher 
certainty than sense ? Shall reason founded on 
false sense be able to contradict the senses, seeing 
that reason is wholly founded upon them ? And if 
they are not true, then all reason as well is rendered 
false. Or shall the ears be able to take the eyes to 

1 Golden maxims, XXII-XXIV. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 215 

task or the touch the ears ? Any one sense cannot 
confute any other. No, nor can any sense take itself 
to task, since equal credit must be assigned to it at all 
times. What, therefore, has at any time appeared 
true to each sense is true." l 

It is only through sense that we come into contact 
with reality; hence all our sensations are witnesses 
to reality. The senses cannot be deceived. There 
can be no such thing, properly speaking, as sense- 
illusion or hallucination. The mistake lies in the 
misinterpretation of our sensations. What we sup- 
pose that we perceive is too often our own mental 
presupposition, our own over-hasty inference from 
what we actually do perceive. When we see an oar 
which is half immersed in water appear bent, the 
image or film which reaches the eye is really bent, 
but the judgment of the mind that the oar itself is 
bent is no part of the perception, it is a gratuitous 
addition to it. The mind confuses two quite dis- 
tinct processes or movements, the perception which 
is infallible, and the conscious or unconscious infer- 
ence from it, which is after all mere presupposition 
or opinion, a groundless belief. The region of cer- 
tainty, then, confined as it is to the direct presentation 
of sense, is even so by no means as extensive as we 
might at first suppose. Sensations themselves must 
be scrutinised, and the element which the mind itself 
has added must be removed before we get back to 
the original data, the perceptions which put us in 
touch with reality. 

Turning now to the other and vaster region of the 
unknown, which is not accessible to direct observa- 
tion because sensation is strictly limited to here and 
now, we observe that some part of it may hereafter 

1 De Rerum Natura, IV, 478-499. 



216 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

come within our ken and be directly observed. This 
Epicurus denotes as "that which awaits confirma- 
tion." Cognition is an interrogative process. We 
put the question and wait until experience and re- 
ality, under favourable circumstances, supply the 
answer. But our knowledge, confined within these 
limits, would be very inadequate. By what we have 
above called an inchoate induction Epicurus regu- 
lates the steps by which we anticipate all experience 
with certainty. His fundamental assumption is the 
uniformity of experience: that whatever occurs in 
the sphere beyond knowledge must follow the same 
laws of operation as what is known to occur within 
the range of our experience. It is right, then, to 
affirm about the unknown (i) what is confirmed and 
witnessed to by the known, or at least (2) what is not 
directly witnessed against by the known. Thus the 
criterion, the supreme test of validity, is future ex- 
perience, experience repeated or, at all events, not 
contradicted. The second half of this canon is by no 
means so sound as the first. It is capable of wide 
application, and must allow many doubtful expla- 
nations to pass for matters of belief. What is the 
ground on which Epicurus believes that there is an 
infinity of worlds, that the blessed and immortal gods 
inhabit the intermundia, that films from external 
objects enter the sense-organs and the mind, thus 
causing sensation and thought — propositions for 
which there is not a tittle of positive evidence ? His 
reply is: " Nothing that we know by direct observa- 
tion contradicts any one of these assertions. " And 
so Epicurus gives them, we may say, the benefit of the 
doubt. 

Another caution is needed. If reasoning is to be 
anything better than mere quibbling, special atten- 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 217 

tion to language is necessary. Every term that is 
used must call up a clear and distinct conception or 
idea, which again must be based upon one clear and 
distinct perception. To general terms, as we shall 
hereafter see, correspond not single images, but the 
resultant of an accumulated series of images, the 
individual peculiarities of which are blunted and 
fused in a single pictorial type, much in the same way 
as when the photographs of different individuals are 
superposed on each other in order to form a com- 
posite photograph. But every perception in the series 
must be clear and distinct, in order that the resultant 
may have these qualities. In this way we obtain 
what Epicurus called "preconceptions," which take 
their place beside perceptions and feelings. They 
are the nearest approach which his system allowed 
to general notions. When a general term like " man" 
is used, it calls up to the mind the preconception of 
man, the generic type in which the images of particu- 
lar men are fused and blended. With this explana- 
tion and qualification we may even be permitted to 
substitute "general notion" for "preconception," al- 
ways remembering that it is an inexact equivalent. 
It remains to explain what precisely Epicurus under- 
stood by reasoning in which general terms are used, 
and what part it plays for him in the acquisition of 
knowledge. Sense gives us the raw material of 
knowledge in trustworthy perceptions and internal 
feelings, but he never denied that we also attain 
knowledge by the exercise of reason. Indeed, all 
the more important propositions in the general theory 
to be hereafter unfolded are attained by its aid. 
Reason or reasoning is to him a mental operation, 
which deals, not with particular things, but with 
generic types or notions. If our knowledge did not 



218 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

go beyond sensation it would consist in isolated, 
particular facts. In that case it would be difficult, 
if not impossible, to make the inductive leap from the 
known to the unknown. Reasoning, then, is the ap- 
plication, in a region where direct observation fails 
us, of preconceptions or general notions derived from 
sense, their validity being guaranteed by repeated 
and uncontradicted experience. But future experi- 
ence is the sole criterion by which all our reasoned 
conclusions must be tested. The great doctrine of 
atoms and void stands or falls by it. The claims of 
reason and sense are thus adjusted. Instead of 
subordinating sense to reason, Epicurus is bound by 
the rules he lays down to subordinate reason to sense. 
Conflict between them is really impossible, for, reason 
being derived from sensation, all its conclusions are 
controlled, checked, and verified at every turn by 
sensation. Both, then, share in the making of knowl- 
edge. We see with the eye; we see also with the 
mind. The latter is no doubt the means to the 
knowledge of phenomena beyond the reach of sense. 
Only quantitative, not qualitative, difference, how- 
ever, must be assumed between the two. The atoms 
which we mentally perceive we might conceivably 
actually perceive, if our senses were differently con- 
stituted. They are in no way different from sensible 
solids, except in minuteness, total absence of void, and 
consequent indivisibility. They are thus of a totally 
different order of reality from those objects which 
Plato believed the mind to cognise. Plato's ideas, 
as incorporeal, were for Epicurus non-existent. 

We have now to give in outline, so far as we can 
in the words of Epicurus himself, his theory of the 
sensible world. Where it would conduce to clearness, 
we can supplement the master's teaching as laid down 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 219 

in the letter to Herodotus from the poem of Lucretius. 
The proposition from which we start is by no means 
peculiar to the ancient Atomists but had long been 
widely accepted. It amounts to an assertion of the 
indestructibility of primary matter. This implies 
that, when a particular thing comes into being, the 
imperishable elements of things, whatever they be, 
unite to form a new combination, and when this 
combination is dissolved and the elements, them- 
selves imperishable, which have been temporarily 
united, again separate, the particular thing is de- 
stroyed. Empedocles and Anaxagoras indorsed the 
theory in this form as fully as the Atomists. Nor did 
Heraclitus surrender the principle when in his doc- 
trine of the perpetual flux of the sensible world he 
took the obvious step from being and not-being to 
the next category of becoming. What the propo- 
sition excludes is capricious, arbitrary, random 
agency; what it is feeling after and trying to ex- 
press is orderly sequence — in short, law in nature. 
"To begin with," says Epicurus, "nothing comes 
into being out of what is non-existent. For in that 
case anything would have arisen out of anything, 
standing in no need of its proper germs. And if that 
which disappears were destroyed and became non- 
existent, everything would have perished, there being 
nothing into which things could have been dissolved. 
Moreover, the sum total of things was always such 
as it is now and such it will ever remain. For there 
is nothing into which it can change. For outside the 
sum of things there is nothing which could enter into 
it and bring about the change." 1 The terse summary 

1 Letter to Herodotus, § 38, Epicurea, p. 5, 1. 13 sqq. The letter to Herod- 
otus is given by Diogenes Laertius, Book X, §§ 35-83, and is reprinted 
in Usener, Epicurea, pp. 3-32. I follow throughout the order of the text. 



220 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

of Lucretius, Ex nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse 
reverti, has passed into a proverb. 

Epicurus goes on to state succinctly what is the 
kernel of his whole doctrine. Not only do atoms and 
void exist, but atoms and void are all that exists. 
"The whole of being, then, consists of bodies and 
space. The existence of bodies is everywhere at- 
tested by sense, and it is upon sensation that reason 
must rely when it attempts to infer the unknown 
from the known. If there were no space, which we 
call also room, void, and intangible existence, bodies 
would have nothing in which to be and through 
which to move, as they are plainly seen to move. 
Beyond bodies and space there is nothing which by 
mental apprehension or on its analogy we can con- 
ceive to exist. Here we are speaking of wholes or 
separate things as distinct from their essential and 
accidental qualities. Of bodies, some are composite, 
others the elements of which these composite bodies 
are made. These elements are indivisible and un- 
changeable; and necessarily so, if things are not all 
to be destroyed and pass into non-existence, but are 
to be strong enough to endure when the composite 
bodies are broken up, because they possess a solid 
nature, and are incapable of being anywhere or any- 
how dissolved. It follows that the first beginnings 
must be indivisible, corporeal entities." 1 

The word here translated "indivisible" is identical 
with the word for "atom." Etymologically, "atom" 
means simply "indivisible thing," a thing which can- 
not be cut in two. "Body," the reader must ob- 
serve, is not unambiguous in Epicurus and Lucretius. 

Giussani's proposals for the transposition of certain sections seem un- 
convincing and are certainly confusing. 

1 Letter to Herodotus, § 39, Epicurea, p. 6, 5 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 221 

Properly speaking, atoms alone are bodies, for they 
alone of existent things have no admixture of void in 
them; but the term is extended to denote the com- 
posite things in which along with body proper, i. e. y 
the atoms, there are also found interstices of void. 
All the things which we perceive by the senses belong 
to this class of composite bodies. To express atoms 
themselves, Lucretius uses a variety of terms, such 
as "elements," "first bodies," "first beginnings of 
things," sometimes even "seeds," or singly, "bodies," 
where the context renders the term unambiguous. 
What Epicurus means by essential and accidental 
qualities is well illustrated by Lucretius. "For 
whatever things are named, you will either find to be 
properties linked to these two things," viz., to bodies 
and void, "or you will see to be accidents of these 
things. That is a property," i. e., an essential 
quality, "which can in no case be disjoined and 
separated without utter destruction accompanying 
the severance, such as the weight of a stone, the heat 
of fire, the fluidity of water. Slavery, on the other 
hand, poverty and riches, liberty, war, concord, and 
all other things which may come and go while the 
nature of the thing remains unharmed, these we are 
wont, as it is right we should, to call accidents." * 
The subject will recur again in Epicurus. 2 

He now gives his reasons for believing the sum of 
things to be infinite. "The sum of things is in- 
finite. For what is finite has an extremity, and the 
extremity of anything is discerned only by comparison 
with something else. Now the sum of things is not 
discerned by comparison with anything else; hence, 
since it has no extremity it has no limit, and since 
it has no limit it is unlimited or infinite. Moreover, 

1 Lucretius, I, 449 sqq. 



222 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the sum of things is infinite both by reason of the 
multitude of atoms and the extent of void. For, if 
void were infinite and bodies finite, the bodies would 
not have stayed anywhere, but would have been 
dispersed in their course through the infinite void, 
because they would not have met with anything 
which by coming into collision with them might 
support or check them. Again, if void were finite, 
the infinity of bodies would not have had anywhere 
to be." * 

Epicurus now describes his atoms, their shapes, 
and their incessant motion. "The atoms, which 
have no void in them, out of which composite bodies 
arise and into which they are dissolved vary indefi- 
nitely in their shapes, for so many varieties of things 
as we see could never have arisen out of the recurrence 
of a definite number of the same shapes. The atoms 
of each shape are absolutely infinite, but the variety 
of shapes, though indefinitely great, is not absolutely 
infinite. The atoms are everlastingly in motion. 
Some of them rebound to a considerable distance 
from each other; other atoms merely oscillate when 
they have got entangled or are enclosed by a mass 
of other atoms shaped for entangling. This is be- 
cause each atom is separated from the rest by -void, 
which is incapable of offering any resistance to the 
rebound; while it is the solidity of the atom which 
makes it rebound after a collision, however short the 
distance to which it rebounds when it finds itself 
imprisoned in a mass of entangling atoms. Of all 
this there is no beginning, owing to the eternity of 
both atoms and void." 2 

The subject of the shapes of atoms is treated very 
fully by Lucretius. He begins thus: "Now mark, 

1 § 41, Epicurea, 7, 6 sqq. 2 §§ 42-44 Epicurea, 7, 17 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 223 

and next in order apprehend of what kind and how 
widely differing in their forms are the beginnings 
of all things," i. e., the atoms, "how varied by mani- 
fold diversities of shape; not that a scanty number 
are possessed of a like form" (/. e., instead of being 
few, the atoms of a like shape are infinite in number, 
as Lucretius subsequently proves; nevertheless all 
the atoms are not cast in a single mould; they have 
various shapes and sizes), "but because as a rule 
they do not all resemble one the other. And no 
wonder; for since there is so great a store of them 
that, as I have shown, there is no end or sum, they 
must sure enough not one and all be marked by 
an equal bulk and like shape, one with another." * 
By way of illustration he appeals to the fact that 
the subtle fire of lightning passes through openings 
through which earthly fire cannot pass. Hence he 
infers that lightning is composed of finer atoms. 
Light is transmitted through horn, which is imper- 
vious to rain. The atoms of light, then, must be 
finer than those of rain. Wine runs easily, oil slowly 
through a strainer: ergo, the atoms of oil are larger 
and more hooked than those of wine. Honey and 
milk are pleasant to the taste, wormwood and the like, 
nauseous; the former consist of smooth, the latter of 
jagged atoms, which tear a way into the body. And, 
generally, whatever affects the sense pleasantly or 
unpleasantly must be formed of atoms more or less 
smooth or rough, respectively. Again, some things 
with a bitter flavour have atoms not hooked but 
slightly prominent; those of fire and cold are jagged, 
but in different ways, as shown by touch. Those of 
stones, metals, and the like are hooked and branch- 
ing, those of fluids smooth and round; those of 

1 II, 333 sqq. 



224 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

smoke, mist, and flame, sharp but not tangled; while 
in sea-water round and rough atoms are mingled 
with round and smooth ones. 

What Epicurus says about the motion of his atoms 
is not very clear. We may supplement it from 
Lucretius, whose account is as follows: "Sure 
enough no rest is given to first bodies throughout 
the unfathomable void, but driven on rather in 
ceaseless and varied motion they partly, after they 
have pressed together, rebound leaving great spaces 
between, while in part they are so dashed away after 
the stroke as to leave but small spaces between. And 
all which form a denser aggregation when brought 
together, and which rebound leaving trifling spaces 
between, held fast by their own close-tangled shapes 
these form enduring bases of stone and unyielding 
bodies of iron and the rest of their class, few in 
number, which travel onward along the great void. 
All the others spring far off and rebound far, leaving 
great spaces between; these furnish us with thin air 
and bright sunlight. And many more travel along 
the great void, which have been thrown off from the 
unions of things or, though admitted to such unions, 
have yet in no case been able likewise to assimilate 
their motions." 1 

The drift seems to be that we can imagine three 
conditions in which atoms find themselves: (i) free 
atoms, moving singly in space before and after col- 
lision; (2) atoms, once free, which after collision are 
entangled or interlaced, owing to difference of shape, 
with other atoms. When a shell of such entangled 
atoms has been formed, it may enclose (3) im- 
prisoned atoms, only partially free, colliding with each 
other, but only rebounding to short distances because 

1 II, 95 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 225 

they cannot escape from the network of the entangled 
mass or shell within which they are confined. The 
difference between (2) and (3) can be illustrated 
from the physical constitution of sensible bodies, all 
of which, as seen above, are composite, having in- 
terstices of void between their constituent atoms. 
In gases — the atmosphere is the most familiar case — 
and probably also in liquids, the cohesion of the 
parts is imperfect, and the system formed by the 
constituent atoms requires, if it is to maintain even 
this imperfect cohesion, to be enclosed within definite 
bounds. Otherwise their constituent atoms, so im- 
perfectly do they cohere, always tend to disperse 
and become once more free. The only bounds 
which we can imagine in the case of the air are the 
"flaming walls" of our world. For liquids these 
bounds are the sides of the vessel containing them. 
The case is different with the great majority of com- 
posite bodies commonly denoted as solid, metals, 
stones, etc., the component atoms of which have 
become so closely entangled that they are not easily 
separated. The degree of cohesion, then, depends 
upon the closeness of the entanglement, and this in 
the last resort upon the shape of the atoms. There 
is one point on which more information would have 
been welcome. When, in consequence of collision, 
atoms have become entangled or interlaced, what is 
the exact nature of their motion ? All the atoms, 
we are told, are everlastingly in motion; but there are 
no details to show how precisely the motion of two 
or more entangled atoms — such, for instance, as 
these ^^ — differs from the motion of a single free 
or unimprisoned atom. In the densest substance 
known, so long as they are composite bodies there 
are interstices of void. Even the atoms in a piece of 



226 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

steel are everlastingly in motion, throbbing, palpi- 
tating, oscillating so far as the interstices of void 
allow. The narrower the interstices and the shorter 
the path which the atom describes, since its velocity 
is uniform, the more often must it retrace it. In the 
case of composite bodies, the motion of translation 
is evident to the senses. When a cannon ball is shot 
into the air every one of its atoms executes the 
trajectory motion. But when it has fallen to the 
ground its atoms are still moving with uniform 
velocity, throbbing and oscillating as before over the 
tiny interstices of void within the cannon ball, but 
then their motions are wholly internal, latent (motus 
intestini, clandestini). Nor can we suppose that 
these internal motions cease during its flight through 
the air. Here a simile may help us. A swarm of 
bees moves from tree to tree. Seen from a distance, 
their motion is a simple one, a motion of translation, 
immeasurably slower but still of the same nature as 
the flight of a cannon ball. A nearer view discloses 
each separate bee executing motions in all manner 
of directions, upward, downward, to right, to left, 
backward, forward. This it continues to do during 
the flight precisely as it had done when the swarm 
as a whole was at rest, but in such a way that each 
bee in the entire swarm makes the transit from the 
one tree to the other. The direction of the motion 
is altered, not the motion itself. As the flight of the 
single bee in the swarm to the flight of the whole 
swarm, so is the invisible motion of a single atom in 
a composite body to the visible motion of the whole 
body. 

Or take the example of Lucretius, the particles 
of dust seen in a sunbeam through a hole in a 
shutter. "Observe whenever the rays are let in and 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 227 

pour the sunlight through the dark chambers of 
houses: you will see many minute bodies in many 
ways through the apparent void mingle in the midst 
of the light of the rays, and as in never-ending con- 
flict skirmish and give battle, combating in troops 
and never halting, driven about in frequent meetings 
and partings; so that you may guess from this what 
it is for first beginnings of things to be ever tossing 
about in the great void. So far as it goes, a small 
thing may give an illustration of great things and put 
you on the track of knowledge. And for this rea- 
son, too, it is meet that you should give greater heed 
to those bodies which are seen to tumble about in 
the sun's rays, because such tumblings imply that 
motions also of matter latent and unseen are at the 
bottom. For you will observe many things there 
impelled by unseen blows to change their course, and 
driven back to return the way they came, now this 
way, now that way, in all directions round. All, you 
are to know, derive this restlessness from the first 
beginnings," 1 i. <?., the atoms. "For the atoms move 
first of themselves; next, those bodies which form a 
small aggregate and come nearest, so to say, to the 
powers of the atoms, are impelled and set in move- 
ment by the unseen strokes of those atoms, and they, 
next in turn, stir up bodies which are a little larger. 
Thus motion mounts up from the atoms, and step 
by step issues forth to our senses, so that those bodies 
also move, which we can discern in the sunlight, 
though it is not clearly seen by what blows they so 
act." 2 So complicated, then, is the process by which 
the motion of single, free atoms ascends by various 
shifting stages, hard to discriminate, and gives rise 
to the motion of atoms in groups, larger or smaller, 

l II, 114 sqq. . a II, 133 sqq. 



228 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

more or less closely associated, from mobile air to the 
toughest flint or steel. 

After thus dealing with the motion of the atoms, 
Epicurus in the letter to Herodotus next passes 
abruptly to the infinite worlds whose formation is 
due to this motion. "There is an infinite number 
of worlds, some like this world, others unlike it. For 
the atoms, being infinite in number, as has just been 
proved, are borne ever further in their course. For 
the atoms out of which a world might arise or by 
which a world might be formed have not all been 
expended upon one world or a finite number of 
worlds, whether like or unlike this one. Hence 
there will be nothing to hinder an infinity of worlds/' 1 

What he means by a "world" he explains else- 
where. "A world is a circumscribed portion of the 
universe which contains stars and earth and all other 
visible things." 2 He adds that it is cut off from the 
infinite and the circumscribing limit in which it ends, 
its outside boundary, may revolve or be at rest, and 
may be rounded, triangular, or of any other shape. 
In our world, so Epicurus thinks, the central earth 
plays the most important part, being vastly greater 
in size and mass than the sun and stars which sur- 
round it. This fundamental error arose from his re- 
fusal to treat astronomy as a serious or exact science, 
to which reference has already been made. The 
result is curious. If we neglect the miniature sun 
and flickering stars which the eye of sense perceives 
surrounding the earth in this our world, the bound- 
less universe which Epicurus descries with his mental 
vision approximates to a far greater degree than we 
might at first sight suppose to the universe as it is 

1 § 45, Epicurea, o, 4 sqq. 

8 Letter to Pythocles, Epicurea, p. 37, 7. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 229 

conceived by the modern astronomer. To the latter 
the universe is resolved into countless suns, each with 
its attendant planetary system, and the nebulae out 
of which such solar systems are believed to have de- 
veloped. For him the many suns and planetary sys- 
tems are dotted here and there throughout space, as 
were the "worlds" of Epicurus. And yet of the 
"solar" * as distinct from the "sidereal" system 
the account given by Epicurus is flagrantly inade- 
quate, and even puerile, not merely when judged from 
a modern stand-point, but even when compared with 
the current notions of the astronomers of his day. 

The next division of the subject is concerned with 
the manner in which we are affected by external ob- 
jects, and we begin with a remarkable hypothesis, 
that from the exterior surfaces of all composite bodies 
there is a perpetual emission of particles of matter or 
what we may call "films." "There are outlines, or 
films which are of the same shape as the solid bodies, 
but their fineness far exceeds that of any objects that 
we see. For it is not impossible that there should be 
found in the surrounding air emanations of this kind, 
materials adapted for expressing the hollowness and 
smoothness of surfaces, and effluxes preserving the 
same relative position and sequence which they had 
in the solid objects. To these films we give the name 
of 'images' or 'idols.'" 2 

This doctrine of emission or efflux can be traced 
back to Empedocles and Democritus. To the first 
inquirers at the threshold of psychology the prob- 
lem of sense-perception was mainly physiological or 
rather frankly physical. The act of perception was 

1 Or, if the expression be preferred, the "planetary" system: that 
made up of our sun and its attendant planets. 

2 § 46, Epicurea, p. 9, 12 sqq. 



230 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

assimilated to the commonest cases of action and 
reaction between external things, as when a stone 
strikes the water or a seal is impressed on wax. 
Bodies so acting and reacting were observed to be in 
contact, and this fitted the senses of touch and taste. 
But colours, sounds, and smells are perceived at a 
distance. The problem was: How is this action at a 
distance to be explained ? Not much help could be 
obtained from the very crude notion of attraction 
expressed in the proverb "Like to like," although it 
plays a large part both in the theory of knowledge 
and the theory of vision set forth by Empedocles. 
Both he and Democritus were driven to assume that, 
as in the case of touch, there must somehow be con- 
tact even to allow of like acting upon like. Under 
the stress of such necessities of thought they took 
refuge in the theory of emanations. Vision was the 
sense chiefly studied. Moreover, there was the con- 
crete fact that an image of the object seen may be 
observed in the pupil of the eye. Certain other 
experimental facts, the losses of substance caused by 
evaporation and corrosion, the way in which even 
hard stones imperceptibly crumble and wear away 
beneath the tread, may have contributed, as well as 
the evidence of that perpetual change in the physical 
universe which so powerfully impressed Heraclitus. 
By whatever steps it was reached, this astounding 
assumption was made the basis of the Atomists' 
theory, not only of perception, but also of thought. 
For when once it is granted that emanations are 
given off by objects, it is comparatively easy to make 
the further assumption that some of these emanations 
are too fine to act upon the sense-organs, but not too 
fine to affect the equally material soul or mind. For 
the term "film" which we have used might equally 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 231 

well be substituted "efflux," "husk," "filament," 
" layer," or even " membrane." We knowthat Democ- 
ritus called them Deikela, a term which, like "idols," 
suggests likeness. The outside layer or film, as Epi- 
curus is at pains to explain, may resemble the solid 
body from which it has parted in the mutual relation 
and inter-connection of its various parts, that is to 
say, in the two dimensions which a surface has in 
common with a solid. The all-important distinction 
between them is in the third dimension of depth. 
The film lacks depth. In stereoscopic slides this im- 
pression of depth is successfully imitated, and Epi- 
curus, probably following Democritus, supposes a 
constant succession of films from the same object to 
be the means by which the impression of solidity is, 
in fact, conveyed to the eye. 

It is obvious that the theory raises more difficulties 
than it solves. What becomes of all the films ? 
Again, all solid bodies must be perpetually suffering 
loss. How is this loss made good ? As to the last 
point, either we are referred to the enormous quantity 
of free atoms everywhere travelling in the void, which 
by their accession may be supposed to make these 
losses good, or we are reminded that all composite 
wholes are frail and perishable, and do as a fact, in 
the course of time, suffer diminution before they are 
finally dissolved. The modern reader hardly needs 
to be reminded how utterly inadequate to its special 
purpose this assumption was, and how enormous the 
work that had to be done by the sciences of anatomy, 
physiology, and optics before the conditions under 
which an object is seen could be understood. The 
Greeks knew nothing of the retina or the refractive 
properties of the crystalline lens, and had no idea of 
the eye as an optical instrument, of the nature of light 



232 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

or of the nerves. The knowledge we have, imperfect 
as it is, on these subjects has been acquired after 
painful efforts and strenuous researches carried on 
for generations. It would have been impossible with- 
out the microscope, and the continuance of those en- 
deavours to systematise and extend knowledge for its 
own sake, which Epicurus discouraged on principle. 
Why should men busy themselves with minute inves- 
tigations of the structure of the eye and the laws of re- 
flection, so long as there were infinite atoms, enough 
and to spare, to bring a specimen of every visible 
object to the eye of every observer ? Besides, an 
ingenious corollary provides an easy explanation of 
erroneous perceptions, hallucinations, and dreams. 
Not only may films from real objects become dis- 
torted and blunted, but films from different objects, 
or even casual atoms, may meet in the air, blend, and 
enter the eye, causing the vision of objects which 
never were on land or sea, both in our waking hours 
and in dreams. Such aggregates or complexes of 
atoms, taking on the delusive appearance of real 
objects, were technically designated Systaseis. 

Epicurus goes on: "So long as nothing comes in 
the way to offer resistance, motion through the void 
accomplishes any imaginable distance in an indefi- 
nitely short time. For resistance encountered is the 
equivalent of slowness, its absence the equivalent of 
speed. Not that, if we consider the times perceptible 
by reason alone, the moving body arrives at more than 
one place simultaneously (for this, too, is inconceiv- 
able), nor that when in time perceptible to sense it 
arrives from any point you please of the infinite, it will 
not be starting from the point to which we conceive it 
to have made its journey. For, if it stopped there on 
its arrival, this would be equivalent to its meeting with 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 233 

resistance, even if up to that point we allow the speed 
of its journey to imply the absence of resistance." l 

The reader will note that Epicurus is talking about 
films, and the enormous velocity with which they 
must travel in order to reach us, as in his view they 
appear to do, instantaneously. This, however, in no 
way detracts from the importance of these almost 
parenthetical remarks about motion; not the motion 
of atoms, which is at all times uniform, but the mo- 
tion of systems of atoms. What is here said applies 
to all such systems, whether the union is loose and 
easily broken, as is the case with an invisible film, 
more close as with the air and other gases, closer still 
as in water and other fluids, or comparatively perma- 
nent and durable as in earth and the various com- 
posite bodies which we call solid. In all cases alike 
the system moves slowly if resistance is encountered, 
either externally from the medium, air or water, or 
internally — and this is far more important — from the 
jostling, collision, and backward rebound of the 
single atoms composing the system. Such internal 
resistance tends to impede the system. So, also, 
would the pause of rest, if the system reached a 
point, stopped, and then went on. But this, he ex- 
plains, the film does not do unless it encounters re- 
sistance. 

He continues: "This is an elementary fact which 
in itself is worth bearing in mind. In the next place, 
the exceeding fineness of the images is contradicted 
by none of the facts under our observation. Hence, 
also, their velocities are enormous, since they always 
find a void passage to fit them. Besides, owing to 
their infinitesimal fineness, they meet with no resist- 
ance or very little, though many structures, even if 

1 §§46, 47> l- c -> i°. 3 sqq- 



234 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

they be of infinitesimal fineness, do at once encounter 
resistance." 1 

The sun's heat is the example given by Lucretius. 
He says: "First of all we may very often observe 
that things which are light and made up of minute 
atoms are swift. Of this kind are the light of the 
sun and its heat." 2 But, swift as they are, both 
light and heat are often obstructed. So Lucretius in 
another passage: "But that heat which the sun 
emits and that bright light pass not through empty 
void; and therefore they are forced to travel more 
slowly, until they cleave through the waves, so to 
speak, of air. Nor do the several minute atoms of 
heat pass on one by one, but closely entangled and 
massed together; whereby at one and the same time 
they are pulled back by one another and are impeded 
from without, so that they are forced to travel more 
slowly." 3 Here resistance, both from without and 
within, would seem to be very clearly indicated. 

But to return to Epicurus. "The production of 
the images is as quick as thought. For particles 
are continually streaming off from the surface of 
bodies, though no diminution of the bodies is per- 
ceptible because other particles take their place. 
And those given off" for a long time retain the position 
and arrangement which their atoms had when they 
formed part of the solid bodies, although occasionally 
they are thrown into confusion. Sometimes such 
films are formed very rapidly in the air, because 
they need not have any solid content, and there are 
other modes of their formation. For there is nothing 
in all this which is contradicted by sensation, if we 
look at the clear evidence of sense in order, in some 
degree, to learn what vehicles will transfer to our- 

1 § 47, I. c, io, 13 sqq. a IV, 183 sqq. 3 II, 150 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 235 

selves the mutual inter-connection of external ob- 
jects. 

"We must also consider that it is by the entrance 
of something coming from external objects that we 
see their shapes and think of them. For external 
things would not have stamped on us their own na- 
ture of colour and form through the medium of the 
air which is between them and us, or by means of 
rays of light or currents of any sort going from us 
to them, so well as by the entrance into our eyes or 
minds of certain films coming from the things." 2 

Here two theories of vision are criticised. Democ- 
ritus, though it was from him that Epicurus bor- 
rowed his doctrine of films, appears to have combined 
with it the view that the air is the medium by which 
visual impressions reach the eye. Possibly Gomperz 
is right in supposing that Democritus conceived the 
films or husks themselves entering the eye to account 
for vision of near objects only, and introduced air 
as the medium for visual impressions of objects at a 
greater distance. One remark of his has come down 
to us to the effect that, if it were not for the interven- 
ing air, we should clearly descry even minute objects 
at a great distance, such as an ant crawling along 
the sky. At any rate, he supposed, so we are told 
by Theophrastus, that the air received impressions 
from the objects of sight and transferred them to our 
organs of vision, such impressions being literally 
stamped on the air, like the mark of a signet on wax. 
It was owing to this transference that they were often 
blurred and indistinct when they reached us. 

The second theory rejected, that of Plato in the 
Timceus, is commonly held to have originated with 
Empedocles, who certainly compared the structure 

1 § 48, Epicurea, n, 48 sqq. 2 § 49, /. c, p. 11, 14-20. 



236 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

of the eye to a lantern. The gist of his comparison 
is that as the fire within the lantern, screened from 
the winds by transparent sides of horn, talc, or linen, 
nevertheless "leaps forth and casts a gleam through 
the surrounding darkness," so visual rays of the na- 
ture of fire dart out or shine forth from the pupil of 
the eye. 1 Plato's account of vision is more compli- 
cated; it involves the co-operation of three "fires," 
(i) that which streams forth from the eye (the visual 
current), (2) the fire of daylight in the air, and (3) the 
fire which is the colour of the object seen. Vision 
takes place when these three coalesce. 2 Both Em- 
pedocles and Plato held that like is known by like. 
"We see fire," says the former, "by the fire that is 
in us." 3 Epicurus sticks to the film as a simple and 
sufficient expedient and will have no medium like 
air. His films travel along interstices of void through 
the air, and he will not hear of rays emitted from the 
eye to meet the films. 

Our text continues: "These films or outlines are 
of the same colour and shape as the external things 
themselves, in spite of the difference in size; they 
move with rapid motion and this again explains why 
they present the appearance of the single continuous 
object and retain, when they impinge upon the sense, 
the mutual inter-connection which they had in the 
object, such impact being due to the oscillation of the 
atoms in the interior of the solid object from which 
they come. And whatever presentation we derive by 
direct contact, whether with the mind or with the 
sense-organs, be it shape that is presented or proper- 
ties, this shape as presented is the shape of the solid 
thing, and it is produced by a frequent repetition of 

1 Empedocles, Fragment 84, Diels. 2 2 Plato, Timoeus, 45B-46A. 
3 Empedocles, Fragment 109, Diels. 2 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 237 

the image or by the trace of itself which it leaves 
behind it." » 

In sensation an image strikes upon the sense-organ. 
In every act of preconception or of memory an image 
strikes the mind. A series of repeated images or the 
traces which they leave behind them in us produce 
a presentation of the shape or properties of the ex- 
ternal object from which they came. And if the 
presentation be obtained in this way by direct con- 
tact, whether on the senses or the mind, it corresponds 
exactly in shape and properties with the external 
object. If these conditions are fulfilled, the shape as 
presented to us in sensation and memory or in pre- 
conception is the real shape of the object, the proper- 
ties so presented are the very properties which the 
external object has. Epicurus is here passing from 
the subject of films in general to the veracity of the 
reports of the senses. A theory of mediate percep- 
tion must answer the question: How do I know that 
what I receive through the medium is an exact copy 
of the object ? 

He continues: "Falsehood and error always de- 
pend upon the intrusion of opinion when a fact awaits 
confirmation or the absence of contradiction, which 
fact is afterwards frequently not confirmed or even 
contradicted. For the presentations which are re- 
ceived, e. g., in a picture, or arise in dreams, or from 
any other form of apprehension by the mind or by 
the other criteria of truth would never have re- 
sembled what we call the real and true things, had it 
not been for the impact upon us of certain actual 
things of the kind. Error would not have occurred 
if we had not experienced some other movement in 
ourselves, conjoined with, but distinct from, the per- 

1 §§ 49, 50, Epicurea, p. n, 20 sqq. 



238 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

ception of what is presented. And from this move- 
ment, if it be not confirmed or be contradicted, 
falsehood results; while, if it be confirmed or not 
contradicted, truth results. And to this view we 
must adhere if we are not to repudiate the criteria 
founded on the clear evidence of sense, nor again to 
throw all things into confusion by supporting false- 
hood as if it were truth." 1 

The foregoing account is now applied to hearing 
and smelling. "Again, hearing takes place when 
a current passes from the object, whether person or 
thing, which emits voice or sound or noise, or pro- 
duces the sensation of hearing in any way whatever. 
This current is broken up into homogeneous particles 
which at the same time preserve a certain mutual 
connection and a distinctive unity extending to the 
object which emitted them and thus cause the per- 
ception of it or, if not, merely indicate the presence 
of the external object. For without the transmission 
from the object of a certain inter-connection of the 
parts, no such sensation would have arisen. There- 
fore we must not suppose that the air itself is moulded 
into shape by the voice emitted or by similar sounds; 
for it is very far from being the case that the air is 
acted upon in this way. The blow which is struck 
in us when we utter a sound causes such a displace- 
ment of the particles as serves to produce a current 
resembling breath, 2 and this displacement gives rise 

1 §§ 5°> 5 2 > I- c, p. 12, io sqq. 

2 The Greek word Pneuma means both breath and wind. Here, the 
current or stream of voice-atoms is most probably compared to breath 
itself issuing from the lips. It is, however, just possible that it is com- 
pared to wind, for the same word Pneuma, when it denotes a constituent 
of that mixed substance, the soul, is translated by Lucretius ventus, and 
must therefore denote wind, especially as air, strangely distinguished 
from wind, is another constituent of the soul. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 239 

to the sensation of hearing. Again, we must believe 
that the sense of smelling, like that of hearing, would 
produce no sensation were there not particles con- 
veyed from the object which are of the proper size 
for exciting the organ of smelling, some of one sort, 
some of another, some exciting it confusedly and 
strangely, others quietly and agreeably." * 

The ordinary view made air the medium by which 
sound, conceived as a shock or blow of one thing upon 
another, was conveyed to the ear. Thus Empedocles 
held that particles of air were given off by the sonant 
body. Hearing, according to him, is caused by the 
impact of the air-wave against the cartilage or bony 
flesh which is suspended within the ear, oscillating 
as it is struck like a gong. As the organ of vision 
contains a lantern, so the organ of hearing contains 
a bell or gong, which the sound from without causes 
to ring. But the Atomists, to whom the air was not, 
as it was to Empedocles, a form of primary matter, 
but simply one of the composite bodies, were de- 
barred from regarding the emanation from the 
sonant body as consisting of air. What is given off, 
i. e., sound, considered as a physical thing, is a 
stream of atoms. At the same time Democritus 
would not altogether abandon the common belief 
that air is the medium by which we hear. His view, 
then, is a kind of compromise. The emanation, i. e.> 
the stream of atoms, from the resonant body sets in 
motion the air which lies before it. In this stream 
of atoms from the body and in the air which is moved 
by it like atoms come together according to the 
similarity of their shapes and sizes. The sensation 
of hearing occurs when the atoms of air, rolled along 
by and with the atoms of vocal sound, reach the 

1 §§ 5 2 > 53. *• c -> P- i3» IO m- 



240 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

orifice of the ear. It will be seen that Epicurus is 
resolved to be perfectly consistent and excludes the 
agency of the air altogether, either as medium or 
emanation. The medium is the void, the particles 
of sound conveyed are atoms of that which is sonant. 
On this view we hear exactly as we smell, except that 
atoms of sound enter the ear, atoms of scent the 
nostril. 

Atoms, then, streams of atoms emitted from the 
surface of composite bodies, are the causes of our 
perceptions of external things. The things perceived 
have colour, sound, and odour. Is this so with the 
atoms? Epicurus proceeds: "We must hold that 
the atoms possess none of the qualities belonging to 
things which come under our observation except 
shape, weight, and size, and the properties necessarily 
conjoined with shape. For every quality changes, 
but the atoms do not change, since, when the com- 
posite bodies are dissolved, there must needs be a 
permanent something, solid and indissoluble, left 
behind, which makes changes possible: not changes 
into the non-existent nor out of the non-existent, 
but through differences of arrangement and some- 
times through additions and subtractions of the 
atoms. Hence these somethings capable of being 
differently arranged must be indestructible, exempt 
from change, but possessed each of its own distinc- 
tive mass and configuration. This must be assumed. 
For in the case of changes of configuration within our 
experience, the figure is supposed to be inherent 
when other qualities are stripped off, but the quali- 
ties are not supposed, like the shape, which is left 
behind, to inhere in the subject of change, but to 
vanish altogether from the whole body. Thus, then, 
what is left behind is sufficient to account for the 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 241 

differences in composite bodies, since something 
must necessarily be left instead of everything being 
annihilated." ' 

The atom is unchangeable ex hypothesi, and this 
may be secured provided that the qualities which the 
atom possesses are themselves unchangeable. So 
long as the shape remains unaltered through all the 
motions, collisions, and entanglements which befall 
the atom, since there is no void within it, there will 
be no alteration in size and, since weight depends 
upon size or mass, there will be no alteration in 
weight. In this way size and weight may be re- 
garded as properties necessarily conjoined with shape. 
Neither of them would be affected by different ar- 
rangement or position of the atoms, on which ulti- 
mately depend the qualities which composite bodies 
have and atoms have not. Take colour. In a 
composite body or aggregate of atoms differently 
placed and arranged and, it may be, themselves 
different in shape and size, the colour which we per- 
ceive as belonging to this aggregate, and which by the 
canon of Epicurus really does belong to it, is a con- 
sequence of these same atomic positions, arrange- 
ments, shapes, and motions, and a change in them 
may change the colour of the thing or composite body 
without that thing necessarily ceasing to be what it 
was. The question may be asked: To which division 
of qualities does colour belong ? Is it a property, a 
coniunctum? Or is it an accident, an eventum? It 
seems safest to reply that generic colour, colour of 
some sort or other, is a property of all visible things, < 
so long as they are visible; but particular colour is 
an accident or eventum of a particular visible thing, 
which often changes like the hues of a sunset cloud 

1 §§ 54, 55> l - c -> P- *4, 14 sqq. 



242 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

or in a peacock's tail, owing to the difference of atomic 
motions produced by light or some other external 
influence; lastly, that when a body ceases to be 
visible it has no colour. The qualities which are 
not inherent are accidental qualities, eventa, such as 
whiteness, triangularity, which a thing may gain or 
lose without ceasing to be what it is. Figure or shape 
in general, however, is not such an eventum, but an 
essential property, or coniunctum, of all material 
things whether visible or not. We regard shape as 
something which a material thing must have as long 
as it exists at all. We recognise that the shape 
changes, but we still think of the thing as being the 
same under an altered shape, as in the growth of 
animals and plants or when the same block of wax 
is moulded into different shapes. In other words, 
so long as a material thing persists it must have some 
shape or other. 

Again, "we should not suppose that the atoms 
have any and every size lest we be contradicted by 
facts; but alternations of size must be admitted, for 
this addition renders the facts of feeling and sensa- 
tion easier of explanation. But to attribute any and 
every magnitude to the atoms does not help to ex- 
plain the difference of quality in things; moreover, 
in that case atoms large enough to be seen ought to 
have reached us, which is never observed to occur; 
nor can we conceive how its occurrence should be 
possible." * This is another correction of Demo- 
critus, who imposed no limitations on the size of 
atoms, arguing that, for all we know, they might be 
as large as you please somewhere in an infinite uni- 
verse. "We must not suppose that there is an in- 
finity of particles in any finite body. Hence, not 

1 §§55» 5M- c., p. 15, 12 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 243 

only must we reject as impossible subdivision ad in- 
finitum into smaller and smaller parts, lest nothing 
be left strong enough to form new aggregates and the 
things that exist be necessarily pulverised and anni- 
hilated, but in dealing with finite things we must also 
reject as impossible the progression ad infinitum by 
less and less increments." 1 

The notion of such a progression is theg round- 
work of the famous puzzle of Achilles and the tor- 
toise, propounded by the Eleatic Zeno. Achilles, who 
runs ten times as fast as the tortoise, gives the latter 
a start of a metre. When Achilles has run one metre 
the tortoise is one decimetre in advance; when 
Achilles has got as far as this he finds the tortoise a 
millimetre in advance, and so on ad infinitum; whence 
Zeno wished it to be inferred that Achilles will never 
overtake the tortoise. Epicurus simply denies the 
possibility of continuing ad infinitum such a pro- 
gression, formed by a series of increments, each term 
in the series being a definite fraction of the preceding 
term, precisely as he denies the possibility of continu- 
ing ad infinitum the process of subdivision of a finite 
body, e. g., by taking half, then the half of this half, or 
one-quarter, next the half of this quarter, or one- 
eighth, and so on. The latter series of fractional 
divisions is the complement of the former, that of 
fractional increments. The impossibility in the one 
case and in the other is bound up with Epicurus' s 
assumption that in the last resort not only body, 
t. e., matter, but the dimensions of body, which are 
conceived as traversed in motion, are discrete. To 
the atom, the indivisible minimum of body, corre- 
sponds an indivisible minimum of a dimension, of spa- 
tial dimensions, length, breadth, and depth, at any 
1 § 56, /. c, p. 16, 1-8. 



244 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

rate when the space is rilled and occupied with 
body, under which conditions alone we have the clear 
evidence of sense and intellect for progression from 
point to point upon it. "For, when once we have 
said that an infinite number of particles, of whatever 
size, are contained in anything, it is not possible to 
conceive how this should be. How, in the first place, 
could the magnitude which they form be any longer 
finite ? For clearly our infinite number of particles 
must have some definite size, and then, of whatever 
size they were, the aggregate they made would be 
infinite. And in the next place, since what is finite 
has an extremity which is distinguishable, even if it is 
not by itself observable, it is not possible to avoid 
thinking of another such extremity next to this. 
Nor can we help thinking that in this way, by pro- 
ceeding forward from one to the next in order, 
by such a progression we can arrive in thought 
at infinity." * 

Atoms of any and every size are here disproved on 
other grounds than the foregoing. The polemical 
reference is to Anaxagoras, who maintained an in- 
finite number of infinitesimal "seeds," in his own 
words, "infinite, both in number and in smallness, 
for the small, too, was infinite." 2 Moreover, they 
are all present, Anaxagoras held, in every finite thing. 
The possibility of a minimum he denied, being on 
this point at issue with Leucippus and Democri- 
tus, the Atomist predecessors of Epicurus. Let us 
give the very words of Anaxagoras: "Nor is there a 
least of what is small, but there is always a smaller; 
for it is impossible that what is should cease to be by 
being divided." 3 And, since the portions of the great 

1 § 57, /. c, p. 1 6, 8 sqq. 2 Fragment i, Diels 2 , 

3 lb., 3, Diels. 2 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 245 

and of the small are equal in amount, for this reason, 
too, all things will be in everything. Nor is it possible 
for them to be apart, but all things have a portion 
of everything. And in all things many things are 
contained and an equal number both in the greater 
and in the smaller of the things that have separate 
existence." 1 

Epicurus takes the doctrine to imply that the 
number of atoms in each thing is infinite, and he 
objects that, however small in size the individual 
atoms, an infinite number of them could produce a 
body not finite but infinite. His second objection is 
that, if the atoms be of finite size and an infinite 
number of them be contained in a single thing, the 
progression from the extremity of the first to the 
extremity of the next, and so on to that of the last, 
would be a never-ending progress, which he has 
before declared to be impossible. The word trans- 
lated here "extremity" and in Lucretius "cacumen" 
will best be understood if we take an angular point 
or projection or extreme edge on any sensible body of 
finite size, e.g., the "point" of a sharpened lead- 
pencil or the corner of a cube. If each atom has a 
certain shape it must be conceived on the analogy of 
finite bodies to project some part of this shape which 
the mental vision can distinguish. But what, it may 
be asked, of spherical atoms ? As it is impossible to 
see the whole of a finite sphere with the bodily eye 
or to present to the eye of the mind the whole of a 
spherical atom at once, the part which we do see 
will be bounded. The outside or edge in the part 
we do see is in this case the extremity projecting into 
view. This applies to the visualised pictorial image 
as well as to actual perception. 

1 Fragment 6, Diels 2 . 



246 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Before we go further into the thorny subject of 
discrete minima of area or surface, of length and 
other dimensions, whether of body or space, the 
modern student of philosophy will do well to remem- 
ber where he stands at present. He is familiar with 
two doctrines of space, 1 the Kantian and Berkeleian. 
The former is not free from contradictions; it in- 
volves the idea of infinite divisibility in the space- 
world of our experience. The Berkeleian denies this 
infinite divisibility. We experience only an aggre- 
gate of minima divisibilia; no line is infinitely divis- 
ible. Zeno's problem of motion from one point to 
another, the moving body having to pass through 
an infinite number of points in the interval, does not 
exist for Berkeley any more than for Epicurus; the 
movement is through a discrete number of units of 
length. But Berkeley allowed for all manner of sub- 
stituting in our construction of the world. One ex- 
perience can stand for and symbolise another. Hence 
by substituting for the least part of the line perceived 
or minimum divisibile, its magnified representation 
as seen under a microscope, we treat that as the same 
line, and this we can divide, and this process can be 
repeated in thought indefinitely. The mathema- 
tician generalises our experience and gives us a con- 
ceptualised mathematical space which is infinitely 
divisible and without limits in extent. Berkeley's 
procedure furnishes an illustration and a clue to that 
of Epicurus. Over and over again we find the latter 
stating that the mental vision must be substituted for 
actual perception with the eye; that where direct ob- 
servation is impossible we must visualise in thought. 
His conclusions, as we shall see, are very similar to 

1 Cf. G. S. Fullerton, A System of Metaphysics, cc. X-XII, where the 
two doctrines are expounded and compared. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 247 

Berkeley's, but we must not overlook one great 
difference between them. Berkeley's doctrine is 
phenomenological, that of Epicurus is ontological. 
For him the discrete minima have absolute ex- 
istence. 

Epicurus continues: "We must consider the mini- 
mum perceptible by sense as not corresponding to the 
extended which is capable of being traversed, nor 
again as utterly unlike it, but as having something in 
common with the extended things capable of being 
traversed, though it is without distinction of parts. 
But when, from the resemblance of what they have 
in common, we think we shall distinguish something 
in the minimum, one part on one side and another 
part on the other side, another minimum equal to the 
first must catch our eye. In fact, we see these 
minima one after the other, beginning with the first, 
and not as occupying the same space; nor do we see 
them touch each other with their parts, but we see 
that they afford a means of measuring magnitudes 
by force of their individuality: there are more of 
them if the magnitude measured is greater, fewer of 
them if the magnitude measured is less." 1 The 
magnitude measured by visible minima would natu- 
rally be area or surface. It appears, then, that 
Epicurus conceives a finite surface as reducible in 
the last resort to an assemblage of discretes which 
he terms sensible minima, and declares to be units 
of measurement. Now compare the mathematical 
conception of a finite surface. The geometer's sur- 
face contains an infinite number of lines, each line 
continuous but infinitely divisible, each division of a 
line being a point. Epicurus, on the contrary, holds 
that the finite area or surface consists of a finite 

1 § $&, Epicurea, p. 17, 1-11. 



248 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

number of discontinuous units of area, minima which 
are discontinuous and discrete. 

Hitherto we have been dealing with sensible things, 
with sensible minima, whether of surface or mass. 
Thus in the diagram the smaller square may be re- 
garded as presenting four minima, the larger square 
nine. 



Epicurus now proceeds to apply his conclusions to 
the atom. "We must think that the minimum in 
the atom behaves conformably to this analogy. It is 
only in minuteness that it differs from the minimum 
seen by sense, but it follows the same analogy. We 
have already declared on the analogy of things within 
our experience that the atom has magnitude, and 
herein we have merely reproduced something small 
on a larger scale. And, further, the least and sim- 
plest of lengths must be regarded as boundary-points, 
furnishing from themselves as units the means of 
measuring lengths, whether greater or less, the mental 
vision being employed, since direct observation is 
impossible. For the community which subsists be- 
tween them," i. e., boundary-points of length, "and 
the things without extension or incapable of being 
traversed," i. e., the minimal parts of area or surface, 
"is sufficient to justify the conclusion so far as this 
goes." x That is, as the visible minima measure area 
or surface, so the boundary-points or discrete minima 
of length measure lengths. This passage clearly shows 
that Epicurus regarded a line or length as made up 

1 § 58. I- c, p- 17, 11 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 249 

of certain minima of length, his substitute for the 
geometrical point. Geometers denied that a line 
could be conceived as made up of, or could be 
resolved into, a series of points. But in their con- 
ception and definition of a point they difFered widely 
from Epicurus. The geometers assumed infinite di- 
visibility; there was a point wherever the line could 
be divided. Epicurus introduces us to discrete min- 
ima of length which bound finite perceptible lengths 
precisely as the geometer's points bound his lines. 
The validity of the geometrical point had been al- 
ready questioned by others; even Plato, it is said, 
proposed to substitute the expressions " beginning of 
a line" or "indivisible line" for point. 1 

This by the way. Epicurus now returns to the 
minima of the atom. " But it is not possible that these 
minima of the atom should group themselves together 
through the possession of motion" 2 ; in other words, 
these minima cannot first exist apart and then, in 
virtue of possessing the attribute of motion, unite 
together to form the atom. Our pressing business 
now is with the atom conceived on the analogy of 
finite bodies as occupying space and therefore ex- 
tended, and, being extended (or, as Epicurus prefers 
to say, "capable of being traversed"), as having 
parts. We must not by one whit modify the con- 
ception of the atom as indestructible, immutable, 
impenetrable matter. It has parts, but it has no 
interstices of void; therefore no destroying agency 
can get between these parts and sever them. Hence 
we must recognise that, though the conception of 
atoms accounts for all composite bodies, analysis is 
not exhausted when these composite bodies have 

1 Aristotle, Metaphysica, A, g, 992, a, 19-23. 

2 § 59, p. 18, 1, 2. 



250 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

been reduced to atoms. There is a minimum smaller 
than the atom, but no such minimum separately 
exists. The atom is the least thing which can exist 
"in solid singleness," the limit of separate, individual 
existence. It would therefore be an error to suppose 
that minima of the atom exist at first apart and then 
combine to form atoms as atoms combine to form 
composite things. The minima of the atom are in- 
separable from each other and from the atom to all 
eternity. 

In the following passage Lucretius reproduces 
his master's doctrine on this point: "Then again, 
since there is ever an extremity, a bounding point 
[to bodies which appear to us to be a least, there 
ought in the same way to be a bounding point the 
least conceivable] x to that atom which already is 
beyond what our senses can perceive: that point 
sure enough is without parts and consists of a least 
nature and never has existed apart by itself, and will 
not be able in future so to exist, since it is in itself 
part of that other; and so a first and single part and 
then other and other similar parts in succession fill 
up in close serried mass the nature of the atom; and 
since these cannot exist by themselves, they must 
cleave to that from which they cannot in any way 
be torn. Atoms, therefore, are of solid singleness, 
massed together and cohering closely by means of 
least parts, not compounded out of a union of those 
parts, but rather strong in everlasting singleness. 
From them nature allows nothing to be torn, nothing 
further to be worn away, reserving them as seeds for 

1 A couple of lines must have dropped out between 599 and 600 of 
our present text of Lucretius. Munro fills the gap with the words en- 
closed in square brackets, and thus renders the argument and general 
sense perfectly clear. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 251 

things. Again, unless there shall be a least, the very 
smallest bodies will consist of infinite parts, inasmuch 
as the half of the half will always have a half and 
nothing will set bounds to the division. Therefore, 
between the sum of things and the least of things, 
what difference will there be ? There will be no 
distinction at all; for how absolutely infinite soever 
the whole sum is, yet the things which are smallest 
will equally consist of infinite parts. Now, since on 
this head true reason protests and denies that the 
mind can believe it, you must yield and admit that 
there exist such things as are possessed of no parts 
and are of a least nature. And since these exist, 
those atoms also you must admit to be solid and 
everlasting." * If you reject infinite subdivision you 
must admit the existence of minima (though not 
necessarily their separate existence). "Once more, if 
Nature, creatress of things, had been wont to compel 
all things to be broken up into least parts, then, too, 
she would be unable to reproduce anything out of 
those parts, because those things which are enriched 
with no parts cannot have the properties which be- 
getting matter ought to have — I mean the various 
entanglements, weights, blows, clashings, motions 
by means of which things severally go on." 2 In 
other words, why, it may be objected, should we stop 
short at atoms ? Why should not the minimum re- 
place the atom as the ultimate unit ? The answer 
is that, because the minimum is supposed to have no 
parts, it is impossible to conceive it to behave as the 
atom does. It cannot become entangled, collide, 
fall, or move in the same way as does the atom which 
is possessed of parts. 

Hitherto the incessant motion of atoms has been 

1 1, 599 sqq. 2 1, 628 sqq. 



252 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

postulated and two of its species, (i) vibration or 
oscillation of the imprisoned atom and (2) rebound 
to a greater distance of the unimprisoned atom, have 
been mentioned, both species implying previous col- 
lision. There is another kind of atomic motion. 
Atoms have weight and, like all heavy bodies per- 
ceived by sense, tend to fall downward, i. e., to move 
in a certain empirically determined direction. In 
the summary of Epicurean doctrine which we have 
chosen as our principal authority this downward 
tendency of the atom is not explicitly stated, though 
a passage with which we shall shortly deal clearly 
distinguishes motion due to weight from motion due 
to collision, and the paragraph next to be cited is 
unintelligible, except on the assumption that Epi- 
curus held the doctrine in question. As a necessary 
introduction we will cite the account given by 
Lucretius: "Since they travel about through void, 
the atoms must all move on either by their own 
weight or haply by the stroke of another. For when 
during motion they have, as often happens, met and 
clashed, the result is a sudden rebounding in an 
opposite direction; and no wonder, since they are 
most hard and of weight proportioned to their 
solidity and nothing behind gets in their way." 1 
All atoms and all bodies compounded of atoms have a 
downward tendency. But, as this direction is liable 
to alteration in consequence of collision, we must add, 
"unless some force acting upon them, some blow, 
compel them to move laterally or even vertically 
upward." As sense-perception is the foundation of 
knowledge, especial care is needed here, for fire and 
vapour are seen to rise, not fall. As Lucretius says: 
"Now methinks is the place herein to prove this point 

1 n, 83 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 253 

also that no bodily thing can by its own power be 
borne upward and travel upward; that the bodies 
of flames may not in this matter lead you into error. 
For they are begotten with an upward tendency and 
in the same direction receive increase; and goodly 
crops and trees grow upward, though their weights, 
so far as in them is, all tend downward. And when 
fires leap to the roofs of houses and with swift flame 
lick up rafters and beams, we are not to suppose 
that they do so spontaneously without a force pushing 
them up. See you not, too, with what force the liquid 
of water spits out logs and beams ? The more deeply 
we have pushed them sheer down and have pressed 
them in, many of us together with all our might and 
much painful effort, with the greater avidity it vomits 
them up and casts them forth so that they rise and 
start out more than half their length. And yet me- 
thinks we doubt not that these, so far as in them is, 
are all borne downward through the empty void. In 
the same way flames also ought to be able, when 
squeezed out, to mount upward through the air, al- 
though their weights, so far as in them is, strive to 
draw them down." 1 Meteors, lightnings, the sun's 
light and heat are also adduced to illustrate the 
universal tendency of bodies to fall. 

To return to Epicurus: "In that which is infinite 
we must not say that there is an up and down in the 
sense of an uppermost or a nethermost point. Still, 
a line may be drawn vertically upward and stretch 
to infinity from the point, wherever it is, where we 
stand, and we must not say that this distinction of up 
and down will never be found in it. Nor, again, must 
we say that, in respect of any point we think of, that 
which is beneath it and extends to infinity is at once 



254 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

above and beneath as regards that same point. For 
this is inconceivable. Hence we can assume one 
motion in an upward direction, and only one, which 
we extend in thought to infinity, and one motion in 
a downward direction, and only one, even if ten 
thousand times over it happens that that which 
moves to the regions above our heads encounters the 
feet of those above us, or that which moves down- 
ward from us encounters the heads of those beneath 
us. For the motion in the two cases is conceived as 
extending to infinity in opposite directions through- 
out. 1 

The author is attempting to meet the objection 
that in infinite space there is no up and down, which 
he grants, if up and down are used in an absolute 
sense as implying a highest and a lowest point in 
infinite space. But he goes on to defend the use of 
the terms in a relative sense, and to deny that the 
same direction can be at once both up and down 
in reference to the same point of space. If it be 
granted that a line starting from a given point in a 
given direction may be produced both ways to in- 
finity, then, he contends, if we call motion along this 
line in one direction up, we may also call motion 
along this line in the opposite direction down. A 
falling body which moves in the direction from our 
head to our feet and straight on in the same direction 
to infinity has for us a downward motion, and what- 
ever moves in the contrary direction from our feet to 
our heads and straight on in the same direction to 
infinity has for us an upward motion. From the 
infinity of worlds it may be inferred that there are 
some worlds vertically over our heads and others 
beneath our feet; in the last sentence but one we 

1 § 6o, /. c, p. 18, 3-14. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 255 

seem to find a reference to the inhabitants of such 
worlds. A point on the vertical line may be "down" 
from their stand-point, though it is "up" from ours, 
or vice versa. 

"When they are travelling through the void and 
meet with no resistance, the atoms move with equal 
velocity. Nor will heavy atoms travel more quickly 
than small, light ones so long as they meet with no 
obstruction, nor small atoms travel more quickly 
than great ones so long as they find a passage suitable 
for their size and provided they also do not meet with 
any obstruction. Nor will their upward or lateral 
motion, which is due to collisions, nor, again, their 
downward motion, due to weight, increase or lessen 
their velocity. As long as their motion lasts, whether 
it be vertical or not, their velocity will be quick as 
thought until they meet with some obstruction, 
whether due to external collision or their own weight, 
which overcomes the force of a previous impact. 
Moreover, of the atoms in composite bodies, one will 
not travel faster than another, since all have equal 
velocity; and this whether we consider the motion of 
the atoms in an aggregate in one direction during 
sensible and continuous time or their motions in dif- 
ferent directions in times so short as to be appre- 
hended only by the reason. But they frequently 
collide and are thrust back and forth before finally 
the continuity of their motion is appreciable by sense. 
For the assumption that beyond the range of direct 
observation even the minute times conceivable by 
reason will present continuity of motion is a gratu- 
itous addition, which is not true in the case before us. 
Our canon is that direct observation by sense and direct 
apprehension by the mind are alone invariably true." 1 

1 §§ 61, 62, I. c, p. 18, 15 sqq. 



256 STOIC AND EPICUREAN- 

The atomic theory of Democritus, for whom the 
polemical allusions are intended, undergoes in this 
passage considerable modifications. We have no 
precise information what the earlier Atomists con- 
ceived the original motion of atoms to be. There is 
little or no ground for attributing to them the belief 
of Epicurus that every atom has inherent in it a down- 
ward tendency which we may, if we like, call gravity. 
Their cosmogony starts with a confused motion of 
colliding atoms which by the force of impact move 
vertically, laterally, and in all directions. At the 
same time it appears from Aristotle's criticisms that 
Democritus did really suppose that if two atoms, one 
larger and heavier, the other smaller and lighter, 
moved in the same direction, the former would over- 
take the latter. Aristotle suggested that Democritus 
had omitted to take into account the resistance of the 
air, and that in perfectly empty space a large body 
and a small body would move with equal velocity. 
The opinion of Aristotle is indorsed by Epicurus, so 
firmly, indeed, that when he comes to the crux of his 
whole system he has to adopt a novel expedient to 
bring about collisions between atoms travelling with 
uniform velocity in the same direction. But of this 
more hereafter. In the present passage he simply 
affirms the uniform velocity of all atoms under all 
conditions and at all times, on the ground that they 
move in empty space which offers no obstruction. 
Such an affirmation bears an external resemblance to 
the doctrine of the conservation of energy. But Epi- 
curus seems unconscious of the many assumptions 
which his statement involves. His atoms are abso- 
lutely hard and therefore inelastic. According to 
him the direction of motion changes after impact, 
but there is no loss of energy, and friction is ignored. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 257 

His own concern is first with Democritus, whom ap- 
parently he charges with confounding motion in a 
medium such as air with motion in a void, and next 
with the interesting and different problem, to which 
we have already referred, of the motions of atoms 
in which looser or closer association form composite 
bodies. If we may expand the terse obscurity of the 
summary, the point he makes seems to be this. In 
motion of translation the whole composite body in 
finite time passes from point A to point B in a straight 
line. We are tempted, therefore, by the perversity of 
over-hasty presuppositions, and all those tendencies 
which we may call groundless opinion, inference, or 
belief, to argue that, if this finite time be subdivided 
into atoms of time distinctly conceivable by the mind 
but too short to be apprehended by sense, the uniform 
motion of translation will be maintained through each 
of them, not only for the composite moving body as a 
whole, but for each of its component atoms. This 
he brands as a mistake. We have clear and distinct 
apprehensions by the mind which are trustworthy, 
because in them the mind seizes and grasps objective 
images. When we picture the actual course of a 
single atom in a composite body moving with motion 
of translation, we see clearly and distinctly that it 
does not describe a free course, but is in perpetual 
oscillation backward and forward on account of col- 
lision with the other atoms associated with it in the 
composite body, and we may suppose him to add — 
this is the gist of the argument, though nowhere ex- 
pressed — that in this perpetual oscillation backward 
and forward each atom of the composite body moves 
with uniform velocity "quick as thought," as if it 
were moving singly and freely through space, al- 
though the movement of translation of the whole 



258 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

composite body, as attested by sense, is so immeasur- 
ably slower than the motion of the atom. 

Lucretius describes the motion of the unimpeded 
atom as many times surpassing in velocity the sun's 
light and heat, which, he remarks, travel not through 
void but through intervening air. He corrects the 
error as he conceives it of Democritus thus: "But if 
haply any one believes that heavier bodies, as they 
are carried more quickly sheer through space, can 
fall from above on the lighter and so beget blows able 
to produce begetting motions, he goes most widely 
astray from true reason. For whenever bodies fall 
through water and thin air they must quicken their 
descents in proportion to their weights, because the 
body of water and subtle nature of air cannot retard 
everything in equal degree, but more readily give way, 
overpowered by the heavier; on the other hand, 
empty void cannot offer resistance to anything in any 
direction at any time, but must, as its nature craves, 
continually give way; and for this reason all things," 
i. e., all atoms, "must be moved and borne along with 
equal velocity though of unequal weights through the 
unresisting void." * 

But motion due to weight and motion due to col- 
lision are not, so Epicurus thinks, the whole account 
of the matter. It is unfortunate that we have not his 
own statement but are forced again to borrow from 
Lucretius who is, however, well supported by inde- 
pendent authorities. We must also remember that, 
if Epicurus comes off badly, he is setting out on an 
adventure which the more prudent Democritus de- 
clined. The question why things should be as they 
are does not concern an empiricist. It is enough for 
him to find out how they are. Aristotle expressly 

1 II, 225 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 259 

testifies that Leucippus and Democritus declined to 
give any cause of motion. They said it was original, 
eternal, and without beginning, since each movement 
presupposes a preceding movement, and to seek for 
the beginning of an endless process is absurd. Ac- 
cording to them a vortex motion of atoms preceded 
the very beginning of our world as it now exists. 
But beyond this they do not go back. Epicurus 
seems to have argued that vertical motion in the 
determinate direction which we call downward is 
prior to the motion resulting from collision, impact, 
and pressure, though why this should be so it is hard 
to see, and that atoms moving with equal velocity in 
the same direction would never collide. Feeling 
bound to offer some explanation, since both the 
tendency to fall downward and the collision seemed 
guaranteed by sense, he modified his premisses in an 
arbitrary manner by the gratuitous assumption of an 
atomic declination from the perpendicular to a mini- 
mum extent. Sense tells us that heavy bodies fall 
downward to the earth, but sense never can assure 
us that they do not diverge from the perpendicular, 
provided the divergence is too small for sense to 
discern. Here, again, he avails himself of that con- 
venient loose second clause of the canon with its 
fatal flaw: "Nothing in our experience contradicts 
such an assumption." Certainly not, when the as- 
sumption is expressly removed from the region of 
trustworthy observation. The all important evi- 
dence of sense does not, because it cannot contradict 
an imperceptible swerving. Over this assumption 
opponents made merry, while apologists almost as 
unkind would persuade us that our philosopher 
actually introduced spontaneity into nature out of 
sheer aversion for the natural necessity of Democritus. 



260 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

According to M. Guyau, the power of atoms to de- 
cline from their path in whatever direction it is does 
not disappear after they have combined in matter, but 
still remains, endowing bodies with a power of spon- 
taneous motion to a quite imperceptible degree. 
M. Guyau holds that such a blind latent force of 
spontaneity, working imperceptibly in the things 
around us, issues in those events which are ascribed 
to chance or accident. Instead of attributing atomic 
declination to so unworthy a motive we should rather 
regard it as a desperate device to which Epicurus 
thought himself driven, if, in Plutarch's words, stars 
and animals and chance and human action were to 
be saved from destruction. Here the same three 
causes can be distinguished as in the letter to Me- 
noeceus. The atoms by natural necessity have 
formed our world in which stars and animals are 
included; some things again are due to chance, 
while true spontaneity, as distinct from both of these, 
is to be found in human action alone. Atomic 
declination should be regarded, then, as coming 
under the first rather than the second or third of 
these heads. It is, Lucretius conceives, doubtless 
following Epicurus, a necessary postulate for the 
third, since the motions which are initiated by our 
will are in the last analysis movements of soul atoms. 
Epicurus was no determinist where human action is 
concerned, because, as it seemed to him and has 
seemed to many others since, the testimony of con- 
sciousness contradicts the determinist position. The 
problem, then, was how to reconcile free-will or spon- 
taneous initiative with mechanical necessity in the 
natural world. The solution which he tendered 
must be judged on its merits. It is perhaps not 
more successful than any other. But great as is the 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 261 

departure from the true doctrine of mechanical neces- 
sity which Democritus consistently maintained, this 
is a very different thing from calling in spontaneity 
as a principle in nature. 

But it is time to let Lucretius expound his master's 
doctrine in his own words: "When atoms are borne 
downward sheer through void by their own weights 
at quite uncertain times and uncertain spots they 
push themselves a little from their course; you just 
and only just can call it a change of inclination. If 
they were not used to swerve they would all fall 
down like drops of rain, through the deep void, and 
no clashing would have been begotten nor blow pro- 
duced among the atoms; thus nature never would 
have produced aught." 1 

Here, then, we learn the truth. Go back as far as 
we may in the history of the universe, there is no rain 
of atoms downward. Epicurus, like Democritus, 
supposed atoms moving in all directions, the inherent 
force of pseudo-gravity with which Epicurus, in 
obedience to experience, endowed his atoms, being 
everywhere counteracted by the effects of collision. 
The actual universe shows on a large scale what we 
see of motes in a sunbeam, viz., a dance of particles 
in all directions. The ceaseless rain of eternal atoms 
racing through infinite space in the same downward 
direction, the conception which called forth the en- 
thusiasm of Fleeming Jenkin, belongs to an unreal 
or imaginary universe in which free atoms never 
collide because they never decline. Such a concep- 
tion Epicurus relegated to the limbo of false opinion, 
unreality, and error for the sufficient reason that our 
world, and infinite other worlds, actually exist, i. e., 
have come into being, which could never have hap- 

1 II, 216 sqq. 



262 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

pened on the hypothesis rejected. After refuting the 
opinion attributed to Democritus, that heavier atoms 
fall more quickly and overtake lighter ones, Lucretius 
proceeds: "Therefore heavier things will never be 
able to fall from above on lighter nor of themselves 
to beget blows sufficient to produce the varied mo- 
tions by which nature carries on things. Wherefore, 
again and again I say bodies must swerve a little; and 
yet not more than the least possible, lest we be found 
to be imagining oblique motions, and this the reality 
should refute. For this we see to be plain and evi- 
dent that weights, so far as in them is, cannot travel 
obliquely when they fall from above, at least so far as 
you can perceive; but that nothing swerves in any 
case from the straight course, who is there that can 
perceive ?" 1 The qualifying clauses should be care- 
fully noted. 

Lucretius goes on to adduce the evidence of con- 
sciousness for our own power of spontaneous initia- 
tive. "Again, if all motion is ever linked together 
and a new motion ever springs from another in a 
fixed order and atoms do not by swerving make some 
commencement of motion to break through the de- 
crees of fate, that cause follow not cause from ever- 
lasting, whence have all living creatures here on 
earth, whence, I ask, has been wrested from the fates 
the power by which we go forward whither the will 
leads each, by which likewise we change the direction 
of our motions neither at a fixed time nor fixed place, 
but when and where the mind itself has prompted ? 
For beyond a doubt in these things his own will 
makes for each a beginning and from this beginning 
motions are welled 2 through the limbs. See you not, 
too, when the barriers are thrown open at a given 

1 II, 240 sqq. - Per membra rigantur. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 263 

moment, that yet the eager powers of the horses can- 
not start forward so instantaneously as the mind 
itself desires ? The whole store of matter through 
the whole body must be sought out in order that, 
stirred up through all the frame, it may follow with 
undivided effort the bent of the mind, so that you 
see the beginning of motion is born from the heart, 
and the action first commences in the will of the 
mind and next is transmitted through the whole body 
and frame. Quite different is the case when we move 
on propelled by a stroke inflicted by the strong might 
and strong compulsion of another; for then it is 
quite clear that all the matter of the whole body 
moves and is hurried on against our inclination until 
the will has reined it in throughout the limbs. Do 
you see, then, in this case that, though an outward 
force often pushes men on and compels them fre- 
quently to advance against their will, and to be 
hurried headlong on, there yet is something in our 
breast sufficient to struggle against and resist it ? 
And when, too, this something chooses, the store of 
matter is compelled sometimes to change its course 
through the limbs and frame, and after it has been 
forced forward, is reined in and settles back into its 
place. Wherefore in atoms, too, you must admit 
the same, admit that besides blows and weights there 
is another cause of motions, from which this power 
of free action has been begotten in us, since we see 
that nothing can come from nothing. For weight 
forbids that all things be done by blows through, as 
it were, an outward force; but that the mind itself 
does not feel an internal necessity in all its actions, 
and is not, as it were, overmastered and compelled 
to bear and put up with this, is caused by a minute 
swerving of atoms at no fixed part of space and no 



264 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

fixed time." * The cogency of this reasoning depends 
upon the Epicurean theory of the atomic constitution 
of the soul. 

Epicurus now treats of the soul. "Next, with 
constant reference to our perceptions and feelings 
(for so we shall have the surest grounds for belief), 
we must understand generally that the soul is a 
corporeal thing, composed of fine particles, dispersed 
all over the frame, most nearly resembling wind with 
an admixture of heat, in some respects like wind, in 
others like heat, but in part even superior to both 
of them in the fineness of its particles, and on that 
account in closer sympathy with the rest of the frame. 
And this is shown by all the mental faculties and 
sensations, by the ease of mental motion and by 
thoughts, and by that the loss of which causes death. 
And we must keep in mind that soul has the greatest 
share in causing sensation. Still, it would not have 
had sensation had it not been confined within the 
rest of the frame. But the rest of the frame, though 
it provides this indispensable condition for the soul, 
and has itself, too, shared in a like property, yet does 
not possess all the attributes of soul. Hence on the 
departure of the soul it loses sensation." 2 This 
means that atoms of soul can neither have sensation 
themselves nor cause the body to have sensation 
unless they are confined in the body. When so con- 
fined, they not only have sensation, but communicate 
it to the body, which becomes sentient. But other 
properties of the soul, e. g., the power to think, are not 
in this way communicated to the body, confinement 
in which is the indispensable condition that the soul 
should have sensation and thought. "For the body 
had not this power in itself, but something else when 

1 II, 251 sqq. 2 §§ 63, 64, Epicurea, p. 19, 15 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 265 

conjoined thereto procured it for the body, which 
other thing through the faculty brought to perfection 
in it in virtue of motion at once acquired for itself a 
quality of sentience, and in virtue of the neighbour- 
hood and close sympathy between them, as I said, 
imparted it to the body also. Hence, so long as the 
soul is in the body, it never loses sentience through 
the loss of some other part. The frame may be 
loosened either wholly or in part and portions of the 
soul may thereby be lost. Yet in spite of this the 
soul, if it manages to survive, will continue to have 
sentience. But the rest of the frame, whether the 
whole of it survives or only a part, will no longer 
have sensation when once that has departed which, 
however small in amount, attunes the multitudinous 
atoms to harmony and life. Moreover, when the 
whole frame is broken up the soul is scattered, and 
has no longer the same powers as before, nor does it 
move, and hence it does not possess sentience. For 
we cannot conceive the sentient subject as otherwise 
than in this composite whole and moving with these 
movements; nor can we conceive it when the body 
which encloses and surrounds it is not the same as 
that in which the soul is now located and in which 
it performs these movements. There is a further 
point to observe; I mean, what the incorporeal is 
when the term is applied to a thing in itself incor- 
poreal. It is impossible to conceive anything that is 
incorporeal in itself except empty space, which can- 
not itself either act or be acted upon, but simply 
allows body to move through it. Hence those who 
call soul incorporeal talk foolishly. For if it were 
so it could neither act nor be acted upon. But, as 
it is, both these properties manifestly belong to 
soul. Thus, then, if we refer all these arguments 



266 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

concerning soul to the standard of our feelings and 
perceptions, and if we remember the propositions 
stated at the outset, we shall see that the subject has 
been adequately comprehended in outline and thus 
be able to verify with certainty the details." 1 

This account is for the most part quite plain and 
easy to follow. Special stress is laid on the mutual 
relation and inter-connection between the soul and the 
body, such that neither can exist without the other. 
We also learn that soul is a corporeal thing, a very 
fine substance, and a composite substance, wind and 
heat being mentioned as two elements in the com- 
pound. The words "the frame may be loosened 
either wholly or in part and portions of the soul may 
thereby be lost" most probably refer to the effects of 
a deadly blow causing a swoon, so that for some time 
life is apparently extinct though recovery is occasion- 
ally possible even then. If this is so the following 
parallel from Lucretius serves to interpret them: 
"Again, a blow more severe than its nature can 
endure prostrates at once any living thing and goes 
on to stun all the senses of body and mind. For the 
positions of the atoms are broken up and the vital 
motions entirely stopped until the matter, disordered 
by the shock through the whole frame, unties from 
the body the vital fastenings of the soul and scatters 
it abroad, and forces it out through all the pores. 
For what more can we suppose the infliction of a 
blow can do than shake from their place and break 
up the union of the several elements ? Often, too, 
when the blow is inflicted with less violence the re- 
maining vital motions are wont to prevail, ay, prevail 
and still the huge disorders caused by the blow and 
recall each part into its proper channels, and shake 

1 §§ 64-68, l. c, p. 20, 13 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 267 

off the motion of death now reigning, as it were, 
paramount in the body and kindle afresh the almost 
lost senses. For in what other way should the thing 
be able to gather together its power of mind and come 
back to life from the very threshold of death, rather 
than speed on to the goal to which it had almost run 
and so pass away?" 1 

In the third book of his poem Lucretius deals with 
the soul and goes over much the same ground as 
Epicurus, but with far greater fulness of detail, and 
the additional statements he makes are confirmed by 
casual references from other authorities, even where 
they at first sight conflict with the bare summary 
given by his master. His account of the nature and 
composition of the soul starts with a refutation of the 
doctrine of harmony, so well known from its examina- 
tion in Plato's Phcedo. This doctrine, which reduces 
the soul from an actual part of the man, co-ordinate 
with the body, to a mere relation or harmony between 
the various parts of the body, had been revived by 
Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus, pupils of Aristotle. 
Lucretius passes on next to distinguish in the single 
substance of the soul two parts which he calls animus 
and anima. The former he describes as the superior 
or ruling part and as localised in the breast, the latter 
as diffused through the whole body. "Now I assert 
that the mind and the soul are kept together in close 
union, and make up a single nature, but that the 
directing principle which we call mind and under- 
standing is the head, so to speak, and reigns para- 
mount in the whole body. It has a fixed seat in the 
middle region of the breast; here throb fear and 
apprehension, about these spots dwell soothing joys; 
therefore here is the understanding or mind. All the 

1 II, 944 m- 



268 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

rest of the soul disseminated through the whole body 
obeys and moves at the will and inclination of the 
mind." * Again: "And since we perceive that vital 
sense is in the whole body, and we see that it is all 
endowed with life, if on a sudden any force with 
swift blow shall have cut it in twain so as quite to 
dissever the two halves, the power of the soul will 
without doubt at the same time be cleft and cut 
asunder and dashed in twain together with the 
body." 2 A soldier's arm or foot or head, he goes on 
to say, cut off in the heat of battle will show for a 
time remains of sense and motion, and a serpent 
chopped in pieces may be seen to writhe and wriggle 
on the ground. These facts, which the poet ad- 
duces to prove that the soul is divisible and therefore 
mortal serve equally well to prove the diffusion of 
vital sense and therefore the presence of soul atoms 
through the whole frame. 

Lucretius exaggerated the distinction between the 
two parts (i) animus or mens, and (2) anima by the 
choice of his Latin terms for them. Our Greek 
authorities speak of the former only as the ruling 
part of the soul and the latter as soul in general. It 
may be a consciousness of this exaggeration that 
leads the poet subsequently to say that he will in 
future ignore the difference between them and treat 
the animus and the anima as one single substance. 3 
There is, indeed, merely a difference of function be- 
tween them, and this may be traced back to the fact 
that in the breast soul atoms are closely huddled 
together and thus give rise to atomic motions more 
complicated than is the case when they are dispersed 
through the limbs and the periphery of the body, 
and are comparatively rare. These atoms are in 

1 III, 136 sqq. a III, 634 sqq. 3 III, 421. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 269 

all cases exceedingly minute, smooth, and spherical. 
But in the composite substance which they unite to 
form can be distinguished not only atoms of wind and 
of heat, but also atoms of air and of a fourth nameless 
substance in which all sensation begins. In the sum- 
mary given by Epicurus above, the third and fourth 
classes of constituent atoms, the atoms of air and of 
the nameless substance are passed over, but that he 
recognised them is a well-attested fact. It causes 
some surprise that any distinction at all should be 
made between wind and air, especially when we 
learn from Lucretius that "wind is produced when 
the air has been stirred and set in motion." * But 
air, according to Epicurus, is not, so to speak, a 
simple body, but is composed of atoms which, though 
always fine and smooth, are yet of different kinds, 
some of them fiery, some moist, together with atoms of 
various things which have been evaporated or pulver- 
ised. In fact, the atmosphere is a medley of atoms of 
all sorts of things, provided these things have been 
volatilised. The poet tells us that "the air is changed 
over its whole body every hour in countless ways. 
For whatever ebbs from things is all borne away 
always into the great sea of air; and unless it in 
return were to give back bodies to things and to 
recruit them as they ebb, all things ere now would 
have been dissolved and changed into air," 2 /. e. y they 
would have entered into that medley of which the 
atmosphere is constituted. It has been suggested 3 
that the exact difference between air and wind is one 
of temperature, and that in air there is a predomi- 
nance of atoms such as constitute a medium or calm 
temperature in the wind which blows a predominance 
of atoms slightly larger and less smooth, such as 

1 VI, 685. 2 V, 275 sqq. 3 Giussani, Studi Lucreziani, p. 184. 



270 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

constitute a cold temperature. As to the fourth sub- 
stance which Lucretius calls the "soul of the soul,'* 
the idea of some scholars that it was confined to the 
breast is preposterous and absurd, for, if sensation 
starts with it, it must be present in every part of the 
frame which has sensation and therefore it must be 
a constituent of every part of the soul. Moreover, 
the doxographers inform us that in the opinion of 
Epicurus sensation took place in the various sense- 
organs, the eye, the ear, the tongue, the nostrils and 
was not, as some other schools held, localised in or 
transferred to a central organ, heart or brain. 
Lucretius thus describes the part which this fourth 
nameless substance takes in the initiation and trans- 
mission of sensation. "Thus some fourth nature, too, 
must be added to these: it is altogether without 
name; than it nothing exists more nimble or more 
fine, or of smaller or smoother elements: it first 
transmits the sense-giving motions through the frame; 
for it is first stirred, made up as it is of small particles; 
next the heat and the unseen force of the wind re- 
ceive the motions, then the air; then all things are set 
in action, the blood is stirred, every part of the flesh 
is filled with sensation; last of all the feeling is 
transmitted to the bones and marrow, whether it be 
one of pleasure or an opposite excitement. 1 

Epicurus next explains the nature and mode of 
existence which be ascribes to his two classes of 
qualities, the permanent properties, coniuncta and 
the variable accidents, eventa. "Shapes and colours, 
magnitude and weights, and, in short, all those quali- 
ties which are predicated of body are properties, either 
of all bodies or of visible bodies, and can be known 
as belonging to body by sense-perception. All these 

1 III, 241 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 271 

properties must not be supposed to exist indepen- 
dently by themselves (for this is inconceivable), nor 
again to be non-existent nor to be some other incor- 
poreal essences present in body besides, nor yet to be 
parts of body. We must consider a whole body in 
general to derive its permanent nature from them, 
though it is not, as it were, formed by grouping them 
together in the same way as when from the particles 
themselves a larger aggregate is made up, whether 
these particles be primary," i. e., the least percep- 
tible which have the property in question, "or any 
parts whatsoever less than the particular whole. All 
these qualities, I repeat, merely give to body its own 
permanent nature. They all have their own char- 
acteristic modes of being perceived along with the 
whole body in which they inhere and never as sepa- 
rated from it; and it is in virtue of this complex 
conception of body that they have received the appel- 
lation of properties." * 

"Again, qualities often attach to bodies without 
being permanent concomitants. They are not to be 
classed among invisible entities nor are they incor- 
poreal. Hence, using the term "accidents" in its 
commonest sense, we say plainly that "accidents" 
have not the nature of the whole thing to which they 
belong, and to which, conceiving it as a whole, we 
give the name of body, nor that of the permanent 
properties without which body cannot be thought of. 
And in virtue of certain peculiar modes of cognition 
into which the complex body always enters each of 
them can be called an accident. But the object, 
whatever it is, in which the accident is said to inhere, 
does not derive its permanent nature from the acci- 
dents which accompany it. There is no need to 

1 §§68, 69, Epicurea, p. 22, 13 sqq. 



272 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

banish from reality this clear evidence that the acci- 
dent has not the nature of the whole to which it 
belongs, nor of the permanent properties which ac- 
company the whole. Nor must we suppose the 
accident to have permanent existence (for this is as 
inconceivable in the case of accidents as in that of the 
permanent properties). They are what they appear 
to be. They must all be regarded as accidents of 
body, not as permanent concomitants nor as having 
the rank of independent existence. They are seen to 
be exactly as sensation itself makes known their in- 
dividuality." x 

The question what we mean when we say that an 
attribute exists is bound up with another question, 
what exactly is meant by saying that a thing has an 
attribute or quality, the question of the import of 
predication. On both points ancient and modern 
thinkers have been much divided. In some of his 
dialogues Plato implies that there are "ideas," as he 
calls them, of qualities, that qualities like beauty are 
self-existent realities or essences, and that a particular 
thing is beautiful because it partakes in self-existent 
beauty, which therefore is immanent in it. This 
Platonic view is the first which Epicurus rejects. 
Again, in disclaiming the absolute non-existence of 
properties he probably refers to Democritus, who 
asserted that colour, sound, and odour did not in 
reality belong to the external objects which we per- 
ceive as coloured, sonant, and odorous. The view 
that qualities are "other incorporeal existences 
present in body" is that of Aristotle, the view that 
qualities are material parts of objects that of the 
Stoics. 

Now as to time. "There is another thing which 

1 §§ 70, 71, l. c, p. 23, 13 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 273 

we, must consider carefully. We must not investi- 
gate time as we do the other accidents which we 
investigate in a subject, viz., by referring them to the 
generic types present to our minds, but we must sim- 
ply attend to the intuitive action itself in virtue of 
which we speak of 'a long time' or 'a short time' 
in the common acceptation of the term. We need 
not adopt any fresh terms as preferable, but should 
employ the usual expressions about it. Nor need we 
predicate anything else of time, as if this something 
else contained the same essence as is contained in the 
proper meaning of the word time (for this is also done 
by some)." x Time had been defined as "number of 
motion " or " measure of motion." Epicurus does not 
think this makes the idea conveyed by the word time 
any clearer. "We must chiefly attend to that to 
which we attach this peculiar character of time and 
whereby we measure it. No further proof is re- 
quired; we have only to reflect that we attach time 
to days and nights and their parts, and likewise to 
feelings of pleasure and pain and to neutral states, 
to states of movement and states of rest, and consider 
that time itself is a peculiar accident of all these, and 
so it is in virtue of this accident that we apply the 
name 'time/ " 2 

Unlike empty space, which has real and separate 
existence, time, as above explained, is merely an 
accident, and, further, that to which it attaches, that 
of which it is an accident, is not anything real or 
corporeal but is itself an accident. Time, then, is 
an accident of accidents, an accident of events or 
occurrences in the present, past, or future. This 
point is brought out by Lucretius thus: "Time, also, 
has no separate existence, and it is due simply to 

1 § 7 2 > h c -> P- 24, 12 sqq. 2 §§ 72, 73, /. c, p. 25, 3-10. 



274 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

events that happen that our mind grasps what has 
taken place in the past, and also what is happening 
now, and, further, what follows in the future. We 
must admit that no one has a perception of time in the 
abstract, apart from the movement of events, whether 
fast or slow. Further, when men say that events like 
the rape of Helen and the conquest of the Trojan 
people by the sword have existence, we must be care- 
ful that they do not haply force us to admit that these 
events have separate existence, on the ground that 
the generations of men, of whom these were the ac- 
cidents, have been carried away by time now gone 
by without recall. For whatever may have taken 
place may be called an accident, in one aspect, of the 
Trojan people, 1 but in another aspect, of the country 
itself. Further, if there had been no matter and no 
place and room, in which the different processes go 
on, never would the fire, kindled by love of Helen's 
beauty, have blazed in the heart of Phrygian Paris, 
and kindled that famous contest of cruel war; nor 
would the wooden horse, unknown to the Trojans, 
have set fire to Pergamus by the hand of the Greeks 
who came forth from its womb in the night. Hence 
you can clearly see that all events from first to last 
have no separate existence or being as body has, and 
are not terms of the same kind as void is; rather they 
are such that you may justly call them accidents of 
body and accidents of place in which the different 
processes go on." 2 

"Next," Epicurus goes on, "we must consider that 
the worlds and every finite aggregate which bears a 
strong resemblance to the things we see have arisen 
out of the infinite. For all these, whether small or 
great, have been separated off from special conglomer- 

1 Reading Teucris with Munro for terris. 2 1, 459 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 275 

ations of atoms, and all things are again dissolved, 
some faster, some slower, some through the action of 
one set of causes, others through the action of an- 
other. And we must not suppose that the worlds 
have necessarily one and the same shape. For no- 
body could prove that in one sort of world there 
could equally well not be found as be found the seeds 
out of which animals and plants and all the rest of the 
things we see arise, and that in another sort of world 
this would have been impossible." 1 

"Again, we must suppose that human nature, too, 
has been taught and forced to learn many various 
lessons by the facts themselves, and that reason sub- 
sequently develops what it has thus received and 
makes fresh discoveries, among some men more 
quickly, among others more slowly. Hence, even 
the names of things were not originally due to con- 
vention, but in the several tribes under the impulse 
of special feelings and special presentations of sense 
primitive man uttered cries. The air thus emitted 
was moulded by their individual feelings or sense- 
presentations, and differently according to the differ- 
ence in the regions which the tribes inhabited. 
Subsequently whole tribes adopted their own special 
names in order that their communications might be 
less ambiguous to each other and more briefly ex- 
pressed. Some men, we must suppose, who knew 
about them, tried to introduce the notion of things 
not visible, and put in circulation certain names for 
them, which they were compelled to utter, while the 
others, following their reason as best they could, 
interpreted them in that sense." 2 

There is no plan in nature, says Epicurus, nothing 
which can be referred to supernatural will or agency. 

1 § 73, Epicurea, p. 25, 11 sqq. 2 §§ 75, 76, I. c, p. 26, 7 sqq. 



276 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

"We are bound to believe that in the heavens revolu- 
tions, solstices, eclipses, risings, and settings and the 
like take place without the intervention or command, 
either now or in the future, of any being who at the 
same time enjoys perfect bliss along with immortality. 
For troubles and anxieties and feelings of anger and 
favour do not accord with bliss, but always imply 
weakness and fear and dependence upon one's neigh- 
bours. Nor, again, must we hold that ignited globu- 
lar masses of fire, endowed with bliss, produce these 
motions at will. Nay, in every term we use we must 
hold fast to all the majesty which attaches to such 
notions as bliss and immortality lest the terms 
should generate beliefs inconsistent with this majesty. 
Otherwise such inconsistency will of itself suffice to 
produce disturbance in our minds. Hence, where 
we find phenomena invariably recurring, the invari- 
ableness of the recurrence must be ascribed to the 
original interception and conglomeration of atoms 
cut off" from the infinite, whereby the world was 
formed/' * 

This passage, to be fully appreciated, must be read 
in the light of the antagonistic Stoical doctrine which 
is so pointedly assailed. The stars, according to the 
Stoics, were "globular masses of fire," and yet at the 
same time were rational and supremely happy beings, 
endowed with life as well as self-motion. Epicurus 
first points out that the intelligent government of the 
world is fatal to the immortality of bliss which is the 
divine prerogative, and then tenders a different 
explanation of the order and regularity of phenomena. 
The sun rises and sets regularly only because the 
combination of atoms evolves that particular change 
again and again with an approximation to uniformity. 

1 §§ 76, 77» *• c -> P- 27, 17 sqq- 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 277 

"We must hold that to arrive at accurate knowl- 
edge of the cause of the things of most moment is the 
business of natural science and that happiness de- 
pends upon this and upon knowing what the heavenly 
bodies really are, and anything else which contributes 
to exact knowledge in this respect. Further, we 
must recognise no plurality of causes or contingency 
in the things of most moment, but must hold that 
nothing suggestive of conflict or disquiet is compat- 
ible with an immortal and blessed nature. And the 
intellect can grasp the absolute truth of this." l By 
the "matters of greatest moment" Epicurus means 
the exclusion of the gods or any supernatural agency 
whatever from the government of the world. This 
he considers fully established and absolutely certain. 
No alternative hypotheses or contingencies are admis- 
sible on this subject. This is all we know for certain 
and all we need to know. 

"But when we come to subjects for special in- 
quiry there is nothing in the knowledge of risings and 
settings and solstices and eclipses and all kindred 
subjects that contributes to our happiness, but those 
who are well-informed about such matters, and yet 
are ignorant what the heavenly bodies really are, and 
what are the most important causes of phenomena, 
feel quite as much fear as those who have no such 
special information; nay, perhaps even greater fear 
when the curiosity excited by this additional knowl- 
edge cannot find satisfaction nor subordinate these 
phenomena to the highest causes. Hence, if we dis- 
cover more than one cause to account for solstices, 
settings and risings, eclipses and the like, as we did 
also in particular matters of detail, we must not 
suppose that our treatment of these matters fails 

1 § 78, l- c, p. 28, 15 sqq. 



278 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

of accuracy so far as it is needful to insure our 
tranquillity and happiness. When, therefore, we in- 
vestigate the causes of celestial and meteorological 
phenomena, as of all that is unknown, we must 
take into account the variety of ways in which anal- 
ogous occurrences happen within our experience; 
while as for those who do not know the difference 
between what is or comes about from a single cause 
and what is the effect of many causes, who overlook 
the different impression which things make upon us 
when seen from a distance, and so are ignorant of the 
sort of matters which leave our tranquillity unaf- 
fected, all such men we must treat with contempt. 
If, then, we believe that an event could happen in 
one or other particular way out of several which 
leave our tranquillity unaffected, we shall be as tran- 
quil when we are aware that it actually does come 
about in more ways than one as we should be if 

we knew that it happens in only one particular 

" 1 
way. * 

The argument is this: When the same effect is 

known to have more than one cause, and we are 

uncertain to which of these causes it is to be referred 

in a particular case, then if we are sure that the 

question whether it is to be referred to cause A or to 

cause B does not affect our tranquillity, we need not 

carry the investigation any further. The knowledge 

that of all the causes which bring about this effect 

there is none that in any way disturbs our tranquillity, 

conduces to that tranquillity just as much as would 

the precise knowledge to which of these given causes 

the effect on a given occasion is due. How this 

principle works may be seen from the application 

made by Epicurus himself in the extant letter to 

1 §§ 79, 8o, /. c, p. 29, 6. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 279 

Pythocles. 1 The fifth and sixth books of the poem 
of Lucretius traverse the same ground and the same 
method is there employed. In investigating a phe- 
nomenon of the class defined whose cause is un- 
known, Epicurus, on principle, stops short so soon 
as he has reached a plurality of causes any one of 
which is upon analogy judged capable of producing 
the efFect under investigation without calling in 
supernatural agency. Over the results so obtained, 
which will appear to some ludicrous, to others 
lamentable, the friends of the philosopher will prefer 
to throw a veil. 

"There is yet one more point to seize, viz., that 
the greatest anxiety of the human mind arises through 
the belief that these heavenly bodies are blessed and 
eternal, and that at the same time they have wills 
and actions and causality inconsistent with this be- 
lief, and through expecting and apprehending' some 
everlasting evil either because of the myths or be- 
cause we are in dread of the insensibility of death, as 
if it had to do with us, and through being reduced 
to this state not by conviction, but by a certain irra- 
tional perversity, so that, if we do not set bounds to 
our terror, we endure as much or even more intense 
anxiety than if we held these beliefs. But mental 
tranquillity means to be released from all these 
troubles and to cherish a continual remembrance 
of the highest and most important truths. Hence 
we must attend to present feelings and sense-percep- 
tions, whether those of mankind in general or those 
peculiar to the individual, and to all the clear evidence 
at hand, given by each of the standards of truth. For 
by studying them we shall rightly trace to its cause 
and banish the source of disturbance and dread, 

1 Diogenes Laertius, Book X, §§ 84-116; Epicurea, pp. 35-55. 



280 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

accounting for celestial phenomena and the rest of 
the things which from time to time befall, which 
cause the utmost alarm to the rest of mankind." 1 

This brings us very nearly to the close of the letter 
to Herodotus in which Epicurus, as he goes on to 
say, has given an epitome of his physical theory so 
adequate and yet so compressed that he recommends 
his pupil to commit it to memory. Once more, it 
will be seen, he emphasises the subordination of ail 
physical inquiries to ethical considerations. His sole 
aim is to banish for ever from the mind those fertile 
sources of disturbance, superstition, and terror. In 
so far as these anxieties are due to ignorance, their 
proper cure is knowledge, and within these bounds 
the pursuit of knowledge should be encouraged, not 
for its own sake — far from it — but as the indispen- 
sable means to the great end of life, the tranquillity of 
the individual. In the same spirit Lucretius, who 
so faithfully reproduces his master's teaching, com- 
mences his great task. At the outset of his poem, 
after he has adduced the sacrifice of Iphigenia as the 
crowning instance of the evils prompted by religion, 
he introduces the first of the long series of Epicurean 
dogmas with these words: "This terror, then, and 
darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the rays 
of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the 
aspect and the law of nature; the warp of whose 
design we shall begin with this first principle, nothing 
is ever gotten out of nothing by divine power. Fear, 
in sooth, holds so in check all mortals, because they 
see many operations go on in earth and heaven, the 
causes of which they can in no way understand, be- 
lieving them, therefore, to be done by power divine. 
For these reasons when we shall have seen that noth- 

1 §§ 81, 82, /. c, p. 30, 8 sqq. 



THE ATOMIC THEORY 281 

ing can be produced from nothing, we shall then 
more correctly ascertain that which we are seeking, 
both the elements out of which everything can be 
produced and the manner in which all things are 
done without the hand of the gods." * Master and 
pupil are at one in striving for spiritual freedom. 

1 1, 146 sqq. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 

It remains to consider the attitude of Epicurus 
toward religion. We have already seen that he was 
at once iconoclast and believer. He rejected the 
national polytheism but substituted for it a polythe- 
ism of his own. Ever hostile to false conceptions and 
utterly disbelieving the old time-honoured legends, 
which played so great a part in the life and thought 
and art of his time, he yet retained what he believed 
to be the essence of religion, and a religion not merely 
"within the bounds of reason alone," to employ 
Kant's phrase, but even established on the solid basis 
of experience. Such an attitude has often been a 
stumbling block to students of the system, and the 
difficulties with which it is surrounded required to be 
unravelled with more than ordinary patience and 
insight. 

Atoms and void were, as we have seen, primary 
ontological postulates for Epicurus, as they had been 
for Leucippus and Democritus. If atoms and void 
are postulated it is possible, they held, to account for 
all that exists and all that occurs in the infinite 
universe. Everything follows, said Democritus, by 
natural necessity. Epicurus agreed, with a single 
reservation, that, namely, which relates to the swerv- 
ing of atoms at quite uncertain times and places 
from an absolutely straight course. Even so, he 
does not admit any force or power controlling the 

282 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 283 

atoms from outside, since movement is their inherent 
and inalienable property. There is no room for 
divine agency so long as that agency is conceived as 
supernatural, and he emphatically declares that 
within the universe itself there are no indications 
of purpose or plan. If, then, anything exists to which 
the attribute divine can be ascribed, it is certainly 
not, as the Stoics held, the universe itself, and as 
certainly it is not conscious beings in any way con- 
trolling or interfering with the course of nature. 
From this it would seem to follow that the existence 
of gods, as ordinarily understood, must be denied, 
or at any rate that Epicurus would be justified in 
taking up an agnostic position as Protagoras had 
done in the memorable words: "Whether gods exist 
or do not exist I cannot tell, for there are many things 
which hinder knowledge, especially the obscurity of 
the problem and the shortness of human life." But 
neither Epicurus nor Democritus himself acquiesced 
in such a conclusion. On the contrary, they affirmed 
the existence of beings higher than man. As there 
can be little doubt that on this question the opinion 
of his great predecessor influenced Epicurus, we may 
give a short summary of the views of Democritus. 
As Aristotle expressly testifies, he made no distinction 
between soul, regarded as the vital principle, and 
mind or intelligence. Soul in animals and mind in 
man was simply the most perfect form of matter, and 
at death the atoms composing the soul were scattered 
asunder. 1 He accordingly rejected the hypothesis of 
Anaxagoras that Nous or Mind must be assumed in 
order to account for the origin of motion in the ma- 
terial universe. Democritus held such an assump- 
tion to be both futile and unnecessary, for motion was 
1 Stobasus, Anthologia, I, p. 384, 18, Wachsmuth. 



284 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

eternal and of that which is eternal there can be no 
beginning. 1 Later writers sometimes speak as if 
Democritus held the spherical soul-atoms themselves 
to be a divine element in the universe. But this is 
an error against which we must carefully guard. 
No doubt Democritus contrasted the soul with the 
body as the divine with the human, but soul and 
body were in his view alike corporeal, and "since 
the corporeal substances are as various as the form 
and composition of the atoms of which they consist, 
it is also possible that one substance may have quali- 
ties which belong to no other." 2 The divine ele- 
ment, then, if Democritus used such an expression, 
must be interpreted, not as a divine being or any 
being at all, not as a world-soul controlling the 
material universe from within, but simply as the 
substance of soul, mind-stuff, the purest and most 
perfect form of matter wherever it occurs in particular 
beings: His attitude to popular conceptions of the 
future life may be gathered from a remarkable frag- 
ment preserved by Stobaeus: "Some men who do 
not understand the dissolution of our mortal nature, 
but are conscious of the misery in human existence, 
painfully spend their allotted period of life in con- 
fusion and fear, inventing lies about the time after 
they are dead." 3 How closely this fragment agrees 
with the views of Epicurus the reader will not fail 
to notice. In a lost work, On Hades, Democritus 
collected and probably criticised the numerous fables 
current in antiquity about the resuscitation of the 
dead. In fact, he was the first Greek thinker who 
in so many words denied the immortality of the soul. 

1 See Cicero, De Natura Deorum, I, § 120, Diels, Doxographi, p. 302. 

2 Zeller, Pre-Socratics, Vol. II, p. 262, English translation. 

3 Diels 2 , Fragment 297. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 285 

With regard to the divinities of the popular faith he 
seems to have wavered. Sometimes he treated them 
as allegorical expressions of ethical or physical ideas. 1 
Thus Pallas stood originally for wisdom, Zeus for 
the sky or ether. Only in later times did these con- 
ceptions assume personal existence and become en- 
dowed in the popular imagination with a bodily 
shape. Sometimes he ascribed the origin of religion 
to man's terror at the awe-inspiring phenomena of 
nature, thunder and lightning, eclipses of the sun, 
comets, earthquakes and the like, the phenomena 
which, according to Epicurus, render the study of 
nature indispensable, if mental composure is to be 
assured. Thus the popular gods were converted into 
natural forces or were made the assumed causes of 
natural phenomena. But at other times they were 
reduced to mere daemons, such as in Greek mythology 
occupied an intermediate position between gods and 
men. Democritus assumed that in part the popular 
faith rested on actual evidence of sense, and that 
there are in the surrounding atmosphere beings who 
are similar to man in form, but superior to him in 
size, strength, and longevity. From these beings, as 
from all others, emanate streams of atoms, which 
by contact with the organs of sense, render the beings 
visible and audible to men and even to the inferior 
animals. They are erroneously held to be divine 
and imperishable, although in truth they are not 
indestructible, but merely slower to perish than man. 
Of these beings and their images there were two 
kinds, the one kindly and beneficent, the other de- 
structive and harmful. Hence, Democritus is said 
to have prayed that he might meet with such images 
as were kindly and beneficent. He contrived to fit 

1 Cj. Diels 2 , Fragments 2, 30. 



286 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

this assumption to the popular belief in dreams and 
presages of the future, for the phantom images un- 
fold to us the designs of the beings from which they 
emanate and reveal what is going on in other parts of 
the world. Sextus, from whom this information is 
drawn, expressly says that these daemons were the 
only gods whose existence Democritus admitted. 1 
Scanty as are the materials, it is abundantly evident 
that a belief in these superhuman phantoms, gigantic, 
long-lived, intelligent, is quite compatible with the 
main principles of atomism. They are products of 
atoms and of atomic movements, structures, gener- 
able, and dissoluble like all the other atomic com- 
pounds which we know as particular things. In 
short, Democritus could believe, not only in man, but 
in super-man without compromising his fundamental 
positions, that all takes place by natural necessity, 
that nothing really exists but atoms eternally moving 
and the void space in which they move. 

Let us now suppose that a materialist sincerely 
adopting the atomic theory sets about the task of 
criticising and revising this particular doctrine of 
long-lived daemons and phantom images. Where 
does it require modification ? The starting-point for 
further inquiry would be the alleged evidence of 
experience, whether in sense or imagination; and, as 
these apparitions occur most often by night, the 
whole province of sleep and dreams must be investi- 
gated. A single fragment shows in what a matter- 
of-fact way the materialist Democritus dealt with 
these phenomena. The images in question had their 
seat in the sinews and the marrow when they aroused 
and played upon our souls, and by means of the veins 
and arteries and the brain itself they penetrated to 

1 Sextus Empiricus, IX, 19; 42. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 287 

the inmost parts of the frame. 1 If Epicurus had been 
an original thinker, if the love of knowledge for its 
own sake had had the smallest weight with him, a 
very slight advance in psychology would have sug- 
gested misgivings. But with his stereotyped canons 
of inquiry and his empirical theory of knowledge he 
had no difficulty in swallowing all that was erroneous 
in the view of Democritus and contrived to modify 
it in exactly that direction which brought it into 
violent conflict with the main principles of atomism. 
The gods of Epicurus differ from the gigantic phan- 
toms or daemons of Democritus in three particulars. 
In the first place, they do not dwell in this or any 
other world, but in the intermundia or interspaces 
between world and world; secondly, they are not 
divided into beings beneficent and beings malignant, 
but are all entirely indifferent to and removed from 
human interests; thirdly, instead of being merely 
long-lived, they are indestructible and eternal. This 
last characteristic is incompatible with atomism, 
which can provide no satisfactory answer to the 
question: 

If all be atoms, how then should the Gods, 
Being atomic, not be dissoluble, 
Not follow the great law ? 

The best excuse which his champions can offer 
(and a lame excuse it is) refers us once more to pre- 
conceptions, mental impressions, and the canon of 
truth. Epicurus, we are told, felt bound to believe 
that to be true which was attested, or not contested, 
by experience; felt also bound to hold that no pre- 

1 Hermippus, as quoted by Diels, Archiv fur Geschichte der Philoso- 
phic, VII, p. 155 sq. 



288 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

conception can have arisen except through many 
previous impressions superposed, and that every 
impression corresponds to objective reality. All men 
have the preconception, which implies a multitude 
of previous impressions, of gods. Out of various 
attributes ascribed to the gods he selected two as 
fundamental, and the qualities inferred, blessedness 
and immortality, must belong to the real object 
which produced the impressions and consequent 
preconception. Epicurus thus comes before us as a 
theologian, indeed as a rationalist in theology. We 
can trace the steps which led him to his belief in the 
existence of gods. There is first the universal dif- 
fusion of the belief that gods exist. The universality 
of this belief appeared to him to establish its truth. 
This is the argument reproduced by Cicero's Epi- 
curean authority in his treatise on the nature of the 
gods: "Since the belief in question was determined 
by no ordinance or custom or law, and since a stead- 
fast unanimity continues to prevail among all men 
without exception, it must be understood that the 
gods exist. For we have notions of them implanted, 
or rather innate, within us, and, as that upon which 
the nature of all men is agreed must needs be true, 
their existence must be acknowledged. If their exis- 
tence is all but universally admitted, not only among 
philosophers, but also among those who are not 
philosophers, there is a further admission that must 
in consistency be made, namely, that we possess a 
preconception which makes us think of them as 
blessed and immortal. For nature, that gave us the 
notion of gods as such, has also engraved in our 
minds the conviction that they are blessed and eter- 
nal." * Here it is important to remember that this 

1 De Natura Deorum, I, c. XVII, § 44. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 289 

preconception is not an innate idea in Locke's sense 
of the term, as something stamped upon the soul at 
birth, but is used in its technical Epicurean sense 
and denotes a generic type, a permanent deposit, 
made by the repetition and superposition of similar 
impressions. In the case of the gods these impres- 
sions are always impressions upon the mind, for the 
emanations from the gods are atom-complexes alto- 
gether too fine to affect any sense-organ so as to be 
perceived by sense. As Lucretius says: "The fine 
substance of the gods far withdrawn from our senses 
is hardly seen by the thought of the mind; and, 
since it has ever eluded the touch and stroke of the 
hands, it must touch nothing which is tangible for 
us; for that cannot touch which does not admit of 
being touched in turn." 1 

To proceed. If the universal preconception estab- 
lishes, as Epicurus believes, the existence of gods, it 
also establishes the characteristic attributes, perfect 
happiness, and immortality, which all men agree in 
ascribing to the gods. Epicurus, in the letter to 
Menceceus already cited, says: "First believe that 
God is a being blessed and immortal, according to the 
notion of a god commonly held among men. . . . 
For verily there are gods and the knowledge of them 
is manifest." Apparently he accepts both blessed- 
ness and immortality as characteristics given in the 
preconception. From these many other attributes 
may be inferred by reason. Both blessedness and 
immortality would be impaired by the possession of 
bodies of the same dense capacity which belongs to 
our own. Hence we can only assign to them a body 
analogous to the human, ethereal, consisting of the 
finest atoms. They have not body, but quasi-body, 

1 Lucretius, V, 148. 



290 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

which does not contain blood, but quasi-blood. 1 
As their opponents said jeeringly, they are mere 
silhouettes or gods in outline, destitute of solidity. 
Again, such bodies as they have could not live in this 
or any world without being exposed to the ruin which 
would, in time, overwhelm it and them, and in the 
meantime they would live in a state of fear, which is 
incompatible with perfect bliss. Hence, Epicurus 
gave to them as their habitation the spaces between 
the worlds. Nor, again, can they be supposed to 
take any part in governing the course of events, for 
the anxieties and responsibilities of such an office 
would be fatal to happiness. "God does nothing, 
is involved in no occupations, and projects no works; 
he rejoices in his own wisdom and virtue, and is 
assured that his state will always be one of the high- 
est felicity eternally prolonged," says the Epicurean 
in Cicero. 2 This being so, men have nothing to fear 
and nothing to hope from the gods, and we can now 
appreciate the full force of the first golden maxim: 
"A blessed and eternal being has no troubles itself, 
and brings no trouble upon any other; hence it is 
exempt from movements of anger and favour, for 
every such movement implies weakness." This 
maxim is paraphrased by Lucretius as follows: "For 
the nature of gods must ever in itself of necessity 
enjoy immortality together with supreme repose, far 
removed and withdrawn from our concerns; since 
exempt from every pain, exempt from all dangers, 
strong in its own resources, not wanting aught of us, 
it is neither gained by favours nor moved by anger." 3 
In the letter to Menceceus the belief that the great- 
est evils happen to the wicked and the greatest bless- 

1 Cicero, De Natura Deorum, c. XVIII, § 49. 

2 lb., c. XIX., § 51. 3 Lucretius, II, 646. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 291 

ings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, 
is reckoned by Epicurus among the false assump- 
tions of the multitude. In his view, to punish the 
wicked is to be moved with anger, to reward the 
righteous is to be moved with favour, and he pro- 
nounces both states alike incompatible with happi- 
ness. His gods are entirely indifferent to the whole 
course of the world, and consequently to the fortunes 
of humanity. Beyond these fundamental positions 
the authority of Epicurus himself does not carry us. 
But his followers would seem to have somewhat en- 
larged the picture. Philodemus speculated freely on 
the mode of divine existence. The gods would not 
need sleep, sleep being a partial death, only required 
as a means of restoration after fatigue. They must 
have nourishment, though this must be adapted to 
the peculiar constitution of their bodies. If they 
could not communicate with each other, they would 
lose the highest means of enjoyment, and they must 
therefore employ language, Greek or something like 
it. In short, he conceives of the gods as a society of 
Epicurean philosophers, male and female, who have 
everything they can desire and full opportunities of 
converse. Such gods as these alone inspire no fear 
in their worshippers, but are reverenced for their 
very perfection. Moreover, these gods are innumer- 
able. If the number of mortal beings is infinite, the 
law of isonomy, counterpoise, or equal distribution 
requires that the number of immortals should be not 
less. 1 

We do not know whether the master would have 
approved all these fantastic speculations. Nor are 
we informed of his conclusions on one other most 
difficult point. This is usually described as the 

1 C). Cicero, De Natura Deorum, I, § 49. 



292 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

physical constitution of the Epicurean gods. The 
crucial passages in Cicero * are tantalising from their 
obscurity, and it may very possibly be that Cicero 
himself had only imperfectly apprehended the mean- 
ing of the words which he translated. He does, 
however, commit himself to the statement that the 
gods, though material, are not firm and solid like the 
gross bodies of men and visible things, but of a far 
finer texture, and that they have not numerical or 
material, but only formal identity. This has been 
interpreted to mean 2 that the matter of which they 
are composed, instead of remaining fixed and iden- 
tically the same through a finite space of time, as is 
the case with visible and tangible objects, is per- 
petually and instantaneously passing away, to be 
replaced by fresh matter. The form or arrangement, 
of matter alone remains unchanged. Perpetual suc- 
cessions of images, i. e., atom-complexes or films 
having arisen out of the infinite void, stream to a sort 
of focus, and there, by their meeting, constitute for a 
moment the being of the gods; then they stream away 
in all directions, and upon occasion pass into the 
material mind of man, bringing with them the notion 
of the blessed and eternal being whose body they for a 
moment helped to compose and whose form they 
still bear. The contrast between material or nu- 
merical identity and formal identity can be illustrated 
by the difference between a standing pond or arti- 
ficial lake and a river or, still better, a cascade. The 
water in the artificial lake remains the same for a 
finite space of time, whereas, though the form of the 

1 Cicero, De Natura Deorum, I, §§ 49, 105, 109. 

2 First by Lachelier {Revue de Philologie, 1877, p. 264), who has been 
followed by W. Scott {Journal oj Philology, XII, pp. 212 sqq.) and by 
Giussani {Lucretius, Vol. I, pp. 227 sqq.). 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 293 

flowing river and the cascade is constant, the drops 
of water which compose them are never for one in- 
stant materially the same or numerically identical. 
The water keeps flowing on and away, the form alone 
persists. Following this clue, the same ingenious 
interpreters, Lachelier, W. Scott, and Giussani, at- 
tempt to gain support for their hypothesis from the 
doctrine of isonomy (cequabilis tributio), which W. 
Scott expounds as follows: "It is the principle that 
in infinity all things have their match, omnia omnibus 
paribus paria respondent. By this Cicero seems to 
mean a law of averages or chances; the law, namely, 
that of two alternatives equally possible each will 
occur with equal frequency if an infinite number of 
cases be taken. In the present case there is a double 
application of this principle. First, the number of 
atoms in motion in the universe being infinite, there 
must, on the whole, be equal numbers of atom-motions 
tending on the one hand to destroy and on the other 
hand to feed or maintain composite bodies. Lucre- 
tius, though he does not use the word isonomy, lays 
great stress on the thing in this application. 'Thus 
neither can death-dealing motions' (motus exitiales) 
'keep the mastery always nor entomb existence for 
evermore, nor on the other hand can the motions 
which give birth and increase to things (gemtales 
auctificique motus) preserve them always after they 
are born. Thus the war of first beginnings, waged 
from eternity, is carried on with dubious issue.' * 
By the auctifici motus we must understand the ac- 
cretion of constituent atoms to a body in the process 
of growth ; and by the motus exitiales their excretion 
or separation from it in the process of decay. But, 
again, this balance of opposing tendencies may itself 

1 Lucretius, II, 569 sqq.\ cj. also II, 522. 



294 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

be preserved in two different ways. The processes 
of growth and of decay, of combination and of dis- 
solution, may either prevail ultimately in each in- 
dividual object, so that the result on the whole will 
be a perpetual decay of existing things, accompanied 
by a perpetual growth of fresh things in their place; 
or the two processes may go on simultaneously in a 
given object, so as to produce an equilibrium, the 
result of which will be eternal duration. Conse- 
quently (to apply the principle of isonomy once 
more), if we take an infinite number of cases (that 
is, if we consider the whole universe), the alternate 
and . the simultaneous action of the two processes 
must go on to an equal extent. Now, in our world 
(and, by analogy, in all the worlds) the first alter- 
native is that which universally prevails; that is, the 
motions of growth and of decay operate alternately, 
both on the world as a whole and (at shorter inter- 
vals) on each individual within it, thus producing uni- 
versal death and universal birth. Hence, outside the 
worlds, or in the intermundia, room must be found for 
the other alternative; that is, the motus auctifici and 
the motus exitiales must there work simultaneously 
and, instead of producing a succession of different 
beings, must result in the immortality of such beings 
as exist. We see that the exact point proved by the 
principle of isonomy is the perpetual continuance in 
the case of the gods, and in their case alone, of the 
auctifici motus; and that it is on this perpetual con- 
tinuance that their immortality depends. The Epi- 
curean," in De Natura Deorum, 1 "when asked how 
it is that the stream of matter in the form of images 
which goes to form the gods never fails, replies at first, 
that it is because there is an infinite supply of matter 

1 § 109. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 295 

to draw upon; but to the objection that this argument 
would tell equally for the immortality of all things, 
he answers, in effect, that the principle of isonomy 
determines the supply of the infinite in such a way as 
to produce death and birth in some beings and 
immortality in others." 1 Giussani, the Italian editor 
of Lucretius, adopts this hypothesis and goes a 
step further when he affirms that "isonomy was ex- 
cogitated to prove precisely the perpetuity of the 
auctifici motus in the case of the gods and in their 
case only." 2 Giussani assumes that the immortality 
of the gods is exposed to special danger from hyper- 
trophy or the over-assimilation of nutriment, because 
they live in the intermundia amid an enormous 
superabundance of food from the atomic ocean sur- 
rounding them. If the gods assimilate more matter 
than is sufficient for simple preservation, we are 
justified by Lucretius 3 in inferring that such excessive 
growth must be followed by a period in which the 
organism cannot assimilate enough to repair the 
waste that is going on. What is the cause of the 
death of men and animals ? It is the fact that the 
matter of which they are formed is temporarily per- 
sistent. The matter forming my body, which is, for 
the moment, my matter, may be so suddenly injured 
or dispersed by an accident, or it may waste so much 
faster than slow assimilation of food can restore it, 
that death must follow. But no artillery fire, how- 
ever violent and prolonged, could possibly destroy 
Niagara, though every shot in its passage through the 
falls temporarily dislodged drops of water. For it is 
the persistence of matter, which preserves a stone in 
being, that becomes in an organism the cause of 

1 Journal of Philology, XII, pp. 222 sqq. 

2 Giussani, Lucretius, Vol. I, p. 263. 3 II, 1115-1140. 



296 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

danger and death. To make it possible for ever- 
lasting beings composed of atoms to exist, it is not 
enough, Giussani maintains, that the two processes of 
waste and assimilation should go on simultaneously 
and the gain be equal to the loss. For the immor- 
tality of such beings an absolute non-persistence of 
matter is necessary. Such a condition is supplied if 
the bodies of the gods be supposed to retain identity 
of form amid perpetual and instantaneous change of 
matter — in short, if they resemble the cascade or flow- 
ing river, and not the pond or artificial lake of the 
illustration. So far Giussani. All are agreed that 
in men and animals personal identity is compatible 
with slow but persistent change of constituent matter. 
It would seem, then, that, on the hypothesis proposed, 
the identity of these cascade-like gods would, after 
all, differ from human identity in degree only and 
not in kind. 

I have thought it right to present to the reader 
these ingenious speculations as far as possible in the 
words of the scholars who have put them forward. 
It is highly improbable that the whole question 
should not have received full discussion at some time 
or other, if not in the voluminous works of the master 
himself, at any rate in those of his faithful disciples 
who were recognised as authoritative expounders of 
the system. The buried treasures of Herculaneum 
included many treatises by Epicurus and by Philo- 
demus, and now that it has been decided to carry on 
a systematic excavation of this interesting site, we 
may reasonably anticipate much additional informa- 
tion on this and other obscure points of Epicurean 
belief. It may be that such information will cor- 
roborate and justify the shrewd conjectures which 
have been put forward. It may also be that fresh 



THE EPICUREAN "1 1Y 297 

discoveries will render them ob ^f[ I furnish us 
with explanations and solutions ?rto dreamt 

of. With the evidence which w> s _ M possess be- 
fore them, most scholars who K -^ s as- with Epi- 
cureanism have been unable to s Y eCug, e atisfactory 
the hypothesis proposed by L; ^hV ^ nd in the 
main adopted by Scott and Gil en v?Y*° hey either 
give up the problem as insoluable ta ceft^ Schomann, 
Hirzel, and J. B. Mayor, offer lr a tvy 0, >ns of their 
own which, however, are not m< i ea tYv Wincing. It 
may be well to point out what it a ^e& *cates do not 
explicitly emphasise that by the h) ^Vsg^Us of Lache- 
lier and Scott the eternity of gods ^ffetQpast as well 
as in the future seems to be impliec ^ v\diese ideals of 
wisdom and virtue must always havi e ttvted. If they 
are not perishable, neither are they i stable. In a 
universe without purpose or plan* pf<yhich every- 
thing is brought about by blind ph nc0 \jl forces, this 
is indeed surprising. It might well h t abeen thought 
that Epicurus, of all men, would bt e «e least likely 
to call upon faith to redress the balan ^of reason and 
introduce as articles of belief conclusions rejected by 
science. But if he reasoned in the v way suggested 
by Scott and Giussani, what he did Virtually comes 
to this. Our experience of this world shows us be- 
ings generable and perishable. From this he is sup- 
posed to take a gigantic step; to our experience of 
this world he adds "and by analogy of all worlds." 
There are no immortal beings, then, in any one of the 
infinite worlds. But we have the preconception of 
a blessed and immortal being. Therefore, such is 
supposed to be his strange conclusion — we are bound 
to believe that immortal beings exist, and, though 
the worlds are used up, there still remain the inter- 
mundia. Verily, the credulity of a materialist and 



298 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

an empiricist is not to be surpassed by the imagina- 
tive flights of all the idealists. The scoffer might 
well be excused his frivolous jest that Epicurus pen- 
sioned oft the gods into the intermundia. The 
Athenian sage may have come to such conclusions on 
such reasoning, but the cautious inquirer will not 
commit himself until he receives better evidence than 
has hitherto been adduced. 

However this may be, the letter to Menceceus lays 
down with clearness and consistency the views of the 
ma.ster on the popular religion. He claims for him- 
self and for all other dissentients from the national 
faith freedom of conscience, and he further claims 
that disbelief in the popular theology is yet compatible 
with true piety. "For verily there are gods," he 
there says, " and the knowledge of them is manifest; 
but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing 
that men do not steadfastly maintain the notions they 
form respecting them," the notions, namely, of bles- 
sedness and immortality. "Not the man who denies 
the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who 
affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about 
them, is truly impious," Such a statement reveals 
the courageous free-thinker. He is not content with 
criticising the current polytheism, with its immoral 
fables and lying legends; he is not content with 
denouncing the doctrine of Providence as false and 
absurd. He assumes the offensive and brands as 
impious the acceptance of the beliefs which he rejects. 
It is the firm conviction that the popular religion was 
a degrading superstition, enslaving men's minds and 
causing the greatest evils; it is this which lends to the 
denunciations of Lucretius their moral earnestness 
and impassioned fervour. The origin of religion he 
traced, as Epicurus had done before him, to ignorance 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 299 

and fear. Primitive man, knowing nothing of the true 
causes of natural phenomena, chose to ascribe them 
to higher powers and naturally lived in awe and terror, 
ever dreading the interference of incalculable beings 
so mighty to harm. Lucretius expands the idea thus: 
"They would see the system of heaven and the 
different seasons of the year come round in regular 
succession, and could not find out by what causes 
this was done; therefore, they would seek a refuge in 
handing over all things to the gods and supposing all 
things to be guided by their nod. And they placed 
in heaven the abodes and realms of the gods, because 
night and moon are seen to roll through heaven, moon, 
day and night and night's austere constellations and 
night-wandering meteors of the sky and flying bodies 
of flame, clouds, sun, rains, snow, winds, lightning, 
hail, and rapid rumblings and loud threatful thun- 
der-claps. O hapless race of men, when that they 
charged the gods with such acts and coupled with 
them bitter wrath! What groanings did they then 
beget for themselves, what wounds for us, what tears 
for our children's children ! No act is it of piety to be 
often seen with veiled head to turn -:o a stone and 
approach every altar and fall prostrate on the ground, 
to sprinkle the altars with much blood of beasts and 
link vow on to vow, but rather to be able to look on 
all things with a mind at peace. For when we turn 
our gaze on the heavenly quarters of the great upper 
world and ether fast above the glittering stars, and 
direct our thoughts to the courses of the sun and 
moon, then into our breasts burdened with other ills 
that fear as well begins to exalt its reawakened head, 
the fear that we may haply find the power of the gods 
to be unlimited, able to wheel the bright stars in 
their varied motion; for lack of power to solve the 



300 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

question troubles the mind with doubts, whether 
there was ever a birth-time of the world, and whether 
likewise there is to be any end; how far the walls of 
the world can endure this strain of restless motion; or 
whether, gifted by the grace of the gods with an ever- 
lasting exi stence, they may glide on through a never- 
ending tract of time and defy the strong powers of 
immeasurable ages. Again, who is there whose mind 
does not shrink into itself with fear of the gods, 
whose limbs do not cower in terror, when the parched 
earth rocks with the appalling thunderstroke and 
rattlings run through the great heaven ? Do not 
people and nations quake, and proud monarchs 
shrink into themselves, smitten with fear of the gods, 
lest for any foul transgression or overweening word 
the heavy time of reckoning has arrived at its ful- 
ness ? When, too, the utmost fury of the headstrong 
wind passes over the sea and sweeps over its waters 
the commander of a fleet, together with his mighty 
legions and elephants, does he not draw near with 
vows to seek the mercy of the gods and ask in prayer 
with fear and trembling a lull in the winds and pro- 
pitious gales; ,but all in vain, since often caught up 
in the furious 'nurricane he is borne none the less to 
the shoals of death ? So constantly does some hidden 
power trample on human grandeur and is seen to 
tread under its heel and make sport for itself of the 
renowned rods and cruel axes. Again, when the 
whole earth rocks under their feet and towns tumble 
with the shock or doubtfully threaten to fall, what 
wonder that mortal men abase themselves and make 
over to the gods in things here on earth high pre- 
rogatives and marvellous powers sufficient to govern 
all things?" 1 

1 Lucretius, V, 1183 sqq. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 301 

Clearly, then, no prayers, no vows, no p>resage of 
the future ought to find a place in religion as con- 
ceived by Epicurus. The worship which alone he 
approves is such joyous reverence as the human 
spirit, unmoved by hope or fear, spontaneously and 
disinterestedly proffers to superhuman excellence and 
eternal blessedness. If fear is the basis of super- 
stition — as Petronius tersely puts it, "it was fear that 
first made gods in the world" — then freedom from 
fear must be the work of enlightenment. It is as the 
saviour and deliverer of mankind that Epicurus is 
acclaimed by the Roman poet. "If we must speak 
as the acknowledged grandeur of the theme itself 
demands, a god he was, a god, most noble Memmius, 
who first found out that plan of life which is now 
termed wisdom, and who by trained skill rescued 
existence from such great billows and such thick 
darkness." * "Soon as thy philosophy, issuing from 
a godlike intellect, has begun with loud voice to pro- 
claim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are 
dispelled, the walls of the world part asunder, I see 
things in operation throughout the whole void; the 
divinity of the gods is revealed and their tranquil 
abodes, which neither winds do shake nor clouds 
drench with rains nor snow, congealed by sharp 
frost, harms with hoary fall; an ever cloudless ether 
o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed 
largely around. Nature, too, supplies all their wants 
and nothing ever impairs their peace of mind. But, 
on the other hand, the Acherusian quarters are no- 
where to be seen, though earth is no bar to all things 
being descried which are in operation underneath 
our feet throughout the void. At all this a kind 
of godlike delight mixed with shuddering awe comes 

1 Lucretius, V, 7 sqq. 



302 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

over me to think that nature by thy power is laid thus 
visibly open, is thus unveiled on every side." 1 Epi- 
curus directs his searching glance over the entire 
universe. In the tranquil abodes of the divinities 
he descries an external heaven, but nowhere can he 
find an external hell. The Homeric Olympus was 
the creation of the poet's fancy and not the picture 
of any mountain summit within his experience. Even 
more aloof from all possible, as well as actual, ex- 
perience is the philosopher's 

lucid interspace of world and world, 
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, 
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, 
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, 
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
Their sacred everlasting calm. 

With the rival school of the Stoics Epicurus agrees 
in holding that the true hell is the life of the wicked 
here upon earth. The only difference is that the 
Stoics emphasised the moral degradation of the 
sinner, the feelings of shame, the loss of self-respect, 
the consciousness of failure to attain man's proper 
end, while Epicurus dwells most upon the boding 
fear of punishment and the terror of a guilty con- 
science. In a fine passage Lucretius at once ridi- 
cules and allegorises the current fables of punish- 
ment inflicted on the guilty in the unseen world. 

"And those things, sure enough, which are fabled 
to be in the deep of Acheron, do all exist for us in 
this life. No Tantalus, numbed by groundless terror, 
as the story is, fears, poor wretch, a huge stone hanging 
in air; but in life rather a baseless dread of the gods 
vexes mortals : the fall they fear is such fall of luck 

1 Lucretius, III, 14 sqq. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 303 

as chance brings to each. Nor do birds eat a way 
into Tityos laid in Acheron, nor can they, sooth to 
say, find, during eternity, food to peck under his 
large breast. However huge the bulk of body he 
extends, though such as to take up with outspread 
limbs not nine acres merely, but the whole earth, yet 
will he not be able to endure everlasting pain and 
supply food from his own body forever. But he is 
for us a Tityos, whom as he grovels in love vultures 
rend and bitter, bitter anguish eats up or troubled 
thoughts from any other passion do rive. In life, too, 
we have a Sisyphus before our eyes, who is bent on 
asking from the people the rods and cruel axes, and 
always retires defeated and disappointed. For to ask 
for power which, empty as it is, is never given, and 
always in the chase of it to undergo severe toil, this is 
forcing uphill with much effort a stone which, after 
all, rolls back again from the summit and seeks in 
headlong haste the levels of the plain. Then to be 
ever feeding the thankless nature of the mind, and 
never to fill it full and sate it with good things, as the 
seasons of the year do for us, when they come round 
and bring their fruits and varied delights, though 
after all we are never filled with the enjoyments of 
life, this, methinks, is to do what is told of the 
maidens in the flower of their age, to keep pouring 
water into a perforated vessel which, in spite of all, 
can never be filled full. Moreover, Cerberus and 
the furies and yon privation of light are idle tales, as 
well as all the rest, Ixion's wheel and black Tartarus 
belching forth hideous fires from his throat: things 
which nowhere are nor, sooth to say, can be. But 
there is in life a dread of punishment for evil deeds, 
signal as the deeds are signal, and for atonement of 
guilt, the prison and the frightful hurling down from 



304 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the rock,, scourgings, executioners, the dungeons of 
the doomed, the pitch, the metal plate, torches; and 
even thoiagh these are wanting, yet the conscience- 
stricken mind through boding fears applies to itself 
goads an,d frightens itself with whips, and sees not, 
meanwhile, what end there can be of ills or what 
limit, at Last, is to be set to punishments, and fears 
lest these very evils be enhanced after death. The 
life of fools at length becomes a hell here on 
earth." 1 

The Epicureans were never tired of arguing against 
the conception of God as either Creator or Providence, 
against divine interference with the course of nature, 
either to create, to sustain, or to destroy. On these 
points their chief antagonists were the Stoics, but 
they argued just as fiercely against the Peripatetics, 
who denied Providence, upheld the eternity of the 
world, and yet maintained that nature in all her 
operations is unconsciously working to an end. On 
the analogy of any product of human ingenuity, the 
work of creation implies tools, levers, machines, 
agents, and materials. How, it is asked, could air, 
fire, water, and earth have been obedient and sub- 
missive to the architect's will ? Besides, if this work 
began at any point in time, why did the Creator re- 
frain from creating until just that instant, and what 
was his motive for starting then ? What delight 
can the Creator find in the variety of his work ? And 
if it be a delight, why was he able to dispense with 
it for so long ? If the work was undertaken for the 
sake of man, it has failed in its object, so far, at least, 
as the unwise majority of men are concerned. 2 
Lucretius puts these arguments as follows: 

1 Lucretius, III, 977 sqq. 

2 Cicero, De Natura Deorum, cc, VIII, IX. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 305 

"To say that for the sake of men they have willed 
to set in order the glorious nature of the world, and, 
therefore, it is meet to praise the work of the gods, 
calling as it does for all praise, and to believe that 
it will be eternal and immortal, and to invent and 
add other figments of the kind, Memmius, is all 
sheer folly. For what advantage can our gratitude 
bestow on immortal and blessed beings, that for our 
sakes they should take in hand to administer aught ? 
And what novel incident should have induced them, 
hitherto at rest, so long after to desire to change 
their former life ? For it seems natural he should 
rejoice in a new state of things, whom old things 
annoy; but for him whom no ill has befallen in times 
gone by, when he passed a pleasant existence, what 
could have kindled in such a one a love of change ? 
Did life lie grovelling in darkness and sorrow until 
the first dawn of the birthtime of things ? Or what 
evil had it been for us never to have been born ? 
Whoever has been born must want to continue in 
life so long as fond pleasure shall keep him; but for 
him who has never tasted the love, never been on the 
lists of life, what harm not to have been born ? 
Whence, again, was first implanted in the gods a 
pattern for begetting things in general as well as the 
preconception of what men are, so that they knew 
and saw in mind what they wanted to make ? And 
in what way was the power of first-beginnings ever 
ascertained, to know what could be effected by a 
change in their mutual arrangements, unless nature 
herself gave the model for making things ? But if I 
did not know what first-beginnings of things are, yet 
this, judging by the very arrangements of heaven, 
I would venture to affirm, and, led by many other 
facts, to maintain that the nature of things has by 



306 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

no means been made for us by divine power, so 
great aire the defects with which it is encum- 
bered." * 

Philosophic criticism of the popular faith was no 
new thing in Greece. It began with Xenophanes, 
was rampant in the age of the sophists and was in- 
dorsed by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. As a 
rule, the ancients were remarkably tolerant in matters 
of religious belief. The prosecutions of Anaxagoras, 
Protagoras, and Socrates at Athens were primarily 
political, and in succeeding centuries even avowed 
atheism entailed little personal risk. The Epicure- 
ans were not unwilling to join in the services of the 
national religion, and did not hesitate to claim that 
their views were more consistent with true piety than 
those of their rivals the Stoics. Their polytheism, 
at any rate, was sincere, and they could dispense 
with the artifices and allegorical interpretations by 
which the one living universe was converted into a 
hierarchy of personified natural forces. At the same 
time, they were free to maintain their negative at- 
titude, to denounce and ridicule as superstitious what- 
ever in the current beliefs was inconsistent with their 
own fundamental assumptions. 

It is not easy to determine precisely the standing 
and influence which this school of free-thinkers ob- 
tained in the Greek world. It is quite certain that 
Epicurus, in his own lifetime, succeeded in awaken- 
ing public interest and winning wide popularity, that 
after his death his adherents grew and multiplied, and 
that the question why there were so many Epicureans 
was constantly propounded and variously answered. 
We hear of jealousy and enmity between them and 
rival schools, but only once or twice is there any 

1 Lucretius, V, 156-159, 165-186, 195-199. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 307 

suggestion of persecution on religious grounds. At 
the beginning of the second century B. C. ijt is as- 
serted that some Epicureans who had taken refuge 
at Lyttos, in Crete, were banished by a decre e, which 
denounced them as enemies of the gods, nnen who 
had invented a womanish, ignoble, and disgraceful 
philosophy. The decree went on to threaten any of 
them who dared to return with a horrible death by 
torture. At Messene a similar decree outlawed the 
Epicureans as defilers of the temples and <£ disgrace 
to philosophy through their atheism and indifference 
to politics. They were ordered to be b,eyond the 
borders of Messene before sunset and the magis- 
trates were directed to purify the city a<nd shrines 
from all traces of the heretics. 1 It is highliy probable 
that these are isolated cases of political rancour, and 
that the chief count in the indictment was not atheism, 
but indifference, that is, refusal to becor le the sub- 
servient tools of some political faction, the odium 
theologicum being invoked by the winning side against 
irreconcilable foes. At Rome, where po litics was so 
closely bound up with religion, the profession of 
Epicureanism never exposed any one to pains or 
penalties. The circle of Cicero's friends included 
several convinced Epicureans, who enjoyed universal 
esteem. Such were his correspondent Atticus and 
Cassius, one of the conspirators against Caesar. 
The poem of Lucretius, again, exerted a powerful 
influence, as is seen in the evident leaning of both 
Virgil and Horace toward the system which he had 
so passionately advocated. Two centuries later 
Lucian gives us a vivid narrative of events in Paphla- 
gonia, which show the Epicureans of that district to 
have been as fearless enemies of superstition as Epi- 

1 Suidas, Lexicon, s. v. " Epicurus." 



308 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

curus ( r ':>r Lucretius himself could have desired. 1 A 
certain /Alexander laid claim to prophetic powers and 
established his oracle at Abonuteichos. The fame of 
his responses, his growing power and influence, which 
extendec I even to Rome, the tricks and impostures by 
which ht jt deluded those who consulted him and the 
violent n Measures which he took to put down all op- 
position "may be read in the pages of Lucian and 
formed th" e subject of one of Froude's " Short Studies." 
The enen.'\ies with whom Alexander waged relentless 
war were 'the Christians and the Epicureans. Both 
alike he denounced as atheists, excluding them from 
his oracle i\nd from the festivals which he had founded. 
Moreover, 'by his orders on a public occasion, the 
golden ma xims of Epicurus were burnt and their 
ashes flung into the sea. The claims of this impostor 
were tacitly recognised by the Neo-Platonists, Neo- 
Pythagorea ns, and Stoics, and, as Lucian shrewdly 
observes, his knaveries would have imposed upon 
any man who was not an intrepid inquirer after truth. 
Among philosophers a Democritus, Epicurus, or 
Metrodorus would alone have been his match, be- 
cause the su spicions which such pretensions to the 
miraculous naturally excite would, in their case, have 
been fortified by the reasoned conviction that the 
laws of nature are invariable and admit of no capri- 
cious interference. Lucian, as his writings show, 
was an adherent of no philosophical school. His 
satire is directed against all impartially and his testi- 
mony to the important services rendered by Epicure- 
ans in the cause of truth and honesty is all the more 
valuable on this account. He hated charlatans as 
heartily as Voltaire. From some details which he 
mentions it may be inferred that Alexander's in- 

1 Lucian, Alexander Pseudomantis. 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 309 

fluence was at its height during the reign of ]Y/Iarcus 
Aurelius, and while the Stoic emperor was engaged 
in his campaigns against the Marcomanni, i , 70—1 75 
A. D. 

Curiously enough, recent excavation has furbished 
indisputable evidence of Epicurean activity d.uring 
the same century in another part of Asia Mlinor. 
In the year 1884 two French scholars, Holleaux. and 
Paris, discovered inscriptions on the walls of > the 
market-place of the obscure Pisidian town CEnoa.nda. 
They were copied in 1889 and again in 1895, and by 
publication since have been made generally acces- 
sible to scholars. 1 They reveal a striking sbpry. 
Diogenes of QEnoanda was a zealous Epicurean 
teacher, who seems to have devoted his life to the 
exposition of his system. When advancing years and 
the premonitions of disease warned him of his ap- 
proaching end he determined, as he tells us, to ma ke 
one last appeal to his countrymen in a permanent 
form on behalf of the cause which he had so much at 
heart. His motives were twofold. In the first 
place, he had a genuine desire to benefit humanity 
at large, not only his contemporaries, but posterity 
and the casual strangers who might visit the place. 
But we will quote his own words: "This writing 
shall speak for me as if I were present, striving to 
prove that nature's good, viz., tranquillity of mind, 
is the same for one and all. There is another reason 
for my setting up the inscription. Old age has now 
brought me to the sunset of my life and on the verge 
of departure; while acclaiming with a paean the con- 

1 Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique, Vol. XVI, pp. 1-76; Vol. 
XXI, pp. 346-443; an annotated edition was published by Teubner in 
1907, under the title Diogenis (Enoandensis Fragmenta ordinavit et 
explicavit Johannes William. See also the commentary of Usener, in 
Rheinisches Museum, Vol. 47. 



310 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

summer ition of my pleasures, I wish now, before it is 
too lat re, to succour the discerning. If it were one 
or two ( ! or three or four or five or six or as many as you 
like cj*f such, but not too many, who were in evil 
plight^, I might have visited each individually and 
tends >red them the best advice as far as in me lay. 
But 4the vast majority of men sufFer from the plague 
of fa^lse opinions and the number of victims increases 
— fo;,r in mutual emulation they catch the contagion 
one 3 from another, like sheep. Moreover, it is right 
to s^uccour those who shall come after us, for they, 
too , belong to us, though as yet unborn; and it is 
alscp a dictate of humanity to help the strangers who 
sojcourn among us. Since, then, the succour of an 
ins icribed writing reaches a greater number, I wish 
to make use of this portico to exhibit in a public 
phace the remedy which brings salvation. For thus 
I loanish the vain terrors which hold us in subjection, 
eradicating some pains altogether and confining such 
as are due to nature within very moderate bounds 
ana 1 reducing them to the smallest dimensions." * 
He had a further motive which the course of the 
inscription makes sufficiently obvious, viz., to put 
on record an efFective answer to all the adversaries 
of the Epicurean system. He proceeds to refute in 
detail the views of Socrates, who is taken as a type 
of all who declined to study natural science, the 
Heraclitean doctrine of flux and universal relativity, 
the early Ionians, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democ- 
ritus, and finally the Stoics. The reader is en- 
treated not to be content with a casual glance at the 
inscription, but to give it an attentive study. The 
author's enthusiasm and honesty of purpose are 
obvious, but his scholarly attainments were hardly 

1 Diogenis (Enoandensis Fragmenta, Fragment I (William). 



THE EPICUREAN THEOLOGY 311 

adequate to his design, or he would never have f illen 
into the mistake of attributing to Aristotle himseit 
the universal relativity which that philosopher refutes 
as a doctrine of Heraclitus. Even in regard to the 
system which he professed he seems to have been 
misinformed on some minor points. It was the 
ethical theory which he apprehended best and valued 
most. The circumstances under which his singular 
intention was formed and carried out are sufficient 
proof that in his day Epicureanism had its propa- 
ganda and was a living force, and that here, as else- 
where, it was promulgated first and foremost as a 
rule of life, a means of escape from human misery. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY: CARNEADES 

The word "sceptic" has a history of its own. In 
its original meaning, harmless enough, it denoted 
an inquirer, but even then, as people do not inquire 
about that which they already know, it implied some 
degree of uncertainty. Again, inquirers are often 
confronted with difficult problems which by no 
amount of study can be definitely solved. Certain 
data point to one explanation, certain other data to 
another and quite different explanation. In such 
cases the inquirer, after weighing the evidence, may 
still be in a state of suspense or indecision, unable to 
make up his mind. Thus the term acquires a nega- 
tive meaning; the sceptic becomes by easy stages a 
doubter. When his doubts extend to conclusions 
which most other men regard as true, he is apt to be 
set down by them as a disbeliever, and the term 
scepticism, as ordinarily applied both in philosophy 
and religion, has come nowadays to imply a measure 
of disbelief which is not part of its original connota- 
tion. The scepticism of antiquity busied itself with 
the problem of knowledge. But when compared 
with cognate inquiries in modern philosophy, it ap- 
pears in its scope and range almost ludicrously tenta- 
tive, jejune, and superficial. That the object of 
cognition was external reality, nay more, that it was 
material reality, was not in that age seriously ques- 
tioned. No one ever challenged the existence of a 

312 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 313 

real world of things lying behind the phenomena of 
which we are conscious. Confronted by dogmatists 
who maintained that they had certain knowledge of 
the truth of things, ancient scepticism started like its 
opponents with the assumption that things exist and 
that there is a truth to know, thus at the outset beg- 
ging the question which causes the modern thinker 
his greatest perplexity. Its function, then, is purely 
negative and largely polemical, yet, even thus cir- 
cumscribed, it allowed greater activity to thought 
than did the rival dogmatic systems. The impulse 
to pure speculation, to seek knowledge for its own 
sake, was, as we have seen, depreciated and almost 
stifled both by the Stoics and by Epicurus. But it 
survived, stunted and warped, it is true, but not 
quite extinct among those independent critics who 
refused allegiance to these and all other dogmatic 
systems. 

The ancient Sceptics fall into three groups. To 
the first belong Pyrrho and his disciple Timon, with 
whom negation had its modest beginnings. The next 
group comprises the Sceptics of the Middle and New 
Academy; its protagonists are Arcesilas and Car- 
neades. It developed the theory of probabilism, 
which led up to eclecticism, and the logical conse- 
quence of eclecticism was the renunciation of scep- 
ticism altogether. This final step was taken by the 
later Academic Antiochus. The last group, the most 
advanced in their scepticism, includes Agrippa, 
iEnesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus, who are gener- 
ally known as the later Sceptics. The works of 
Sextus Empiricus have come down to us, while those 
of his predecessors are mainly lost; indeed, most of 
them wrote nothing, and of those who did little has 
survived. 



314 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Pyrrho of Elis accompanied Alexander's march 
as far as India, and thus became acquainted with 
Anaxarchus, a Democritean philosopher who took 
part in the same expedition. After his return home 
he lived to an honoured old age in his native city of 
Elis, in poor circumstances, which he bore with 
characteristic repose of mind. His disciple Timon 
of Phlius, after winning a competency by lecturing 
at Chalcedon, gravitated to Athens where he spent 
the remainder of his days and wrote much both 
in prose and verse. His most celebrated work was 
a satirical poem entitled Sdli, of which considerable 
fragments remain. It consisted of three books. In 
the first he spoke in his own person; the others took 
the form of a dialogue between the author and the 
ancient philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon, Timon 
asking questions and Xenophanes answering them 
at great length. By this device he secured an un- 
bounded field for satire in a sarcastic account of 
all philosophers, living and dead. Timon's wit is 
incisive; he gives no quarter and his mock-heoric 
style is enlivened with telling burlesques of Homer. 
It is indirectly through this disciple, who was more of 
a poet than a philosopher, that we derive the only 
definite notice of Pyrrho's teaching. According to 
Timon, then — and the report comes from the phil- 
osopher Aristocles, who lived centuries afterward 1 — 
there are three questions which the seeker after 
happiness must consider: (i) What is the nature of 
things ? (2) What ought to be our attitude to things ? 
(3) What will be the result if we take up this attitude ? 
Things, Pyrrho declared — and it is obvious that by 
things he meant external reality — are all equally in- 
distinguishable, incalculable, and unaccountable, and 

1 In Eusebius, Pr. Ev., XIV, 18, 2. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 315 

therefore sensations and opinions are neither true 
nor false. This being so, the proper attitude is not 
to trust them * but to preserve unwavering neutrality, 
free from prejudice or inclination to either side, and 
to say of any single object that it "no more is than is 
not" or it "both is and is not" or it "neither is nor 
is not" this or that. According to another authority, 2 
Timon explained the formula "not more this than 
that" as a refusal to define or to assent to a definition 
of what a given thing is. Thus refusal to speak 
(aphasia) is sometimes found as an equivalent. The 
result of this attitude Timon affirmed to be mental 
repose or imperturbability, 3 a tranquil and self- 
centred indifference to a world of which we can know 
nothing. For their unwarranted judgments about 
objects betray men into desire, painful effort, and 
disappointment. Thus the end sought by the dog- 
matists through the vain pursuit of knowledge is, 
after all, more easily secured by the renunciation of 
knowledge, and this end is a state of mind which, 
as both Stoics and Epicureans agreed, is one con- 
stituent mark of true happiness. For whether happi- 
ness consisted in pleasure or in virtue, the rival schools 
concurred in the belief that its realisation insured to 
its possessor mental composure, serene and undis- 
turbed. 

It is not a little remarkable that this concise sum- 
mary of the sceptical position should have been 
ascribed to Pyrrho on the evidence of his disciple 
Timon. We are informed that Pyrrho himself wrote 
nothing on philosophy. Moreover, Cicero frequently 
mentions Pyrrho, but always as an austere moralist, 
one might say an ascetic, who went even beyond the 

1 In Eusebius, Pr. Ev., XIV, 18, 3. 2 Diog. Laert., 75, 76. 

3 Ataraxia. See Eusebius, Pr. Ev., XIV, 18, 3. 



316 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Stoics in the attitude which he recommended toward 
all external things. The Stoics held that we should 
regard all objects except good and evil as indifferent 
to us; Pyrrho, according to Cicero, held that the wise 
man is actually insensible to these objects, 1 and many 
stories were told or invented in antiquity exagger- 
ating his alleged indifference to his environment. 
Besides, Cicero has discussed the problem of knowl- 
edge at some length, but in this connection he no- 
where mentions Pyrrho, nor does he seem to be 
aware that he was a sceptic. It may be argued that 
Cicero was not a man of wide reading and got his 
information at second hand, but this, if true, would 
imply that the compilers of the handbooks which 
Cicero certainly consulted were equally silent upon 
the point of Pyrrho's scepticism. They must have 
regarded him, as Cicero does, in the light of a dog- 
matic moralist. These facts would seem to justify 
the conclusion that in Pyrrho's teaching the sceptical 
element was not much developed. He may have 
learned from Anaxarchus the Democritean tenet that 
knowledge obtained through the senses is untrust- 
worthy; he may have developed empirically this one 
side of Democritean teaching, while rejecting alto- 
gether the other side, namely, the assumption of 
atoms and void as sole realities, an assumption 
reached through the intellect alone and not through 
sense. Pyrrho was chiefly concerned to combat per- 
ceptions of sense. This he did empirically without 
the aid of dialectic. He was pre-eminently an ethical 
teacher; he based ethics, as Democritus had done, on 
quietism or calm retirement from the world. His aim 
was to realise that tranquil repose whereby the soul 
lives calmly and steadily, undisturbed by superstition, 

1 Cicero, Acad. Pr., II, 130 ; Be Fin., IV, 43, 49. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 317 

fear, or any other emotion. The systematic form 
given to his teaching by Aristocles is perhaps to be 
ascribed to subsequent developments. Certain it is 
that the later Sceptics ranged themselves under his 
banner and gloried in the name of Pyrrhoneans, 
while they looked askance at, if they did not actually 
disown, the New Academy with which we have next 
to deal. 

The school which Plato founded in the Academy 
had many vicissitudes of fortune in its long and 
romantic history. For some seventy years after 
Plato's death the heads of that school were dogma- 
tists who by degrees came to concentrate their atten- 
tion upon ethics. The school at this period is known 
as the Old Academy. Under Arcesilas of Pitane, in 
Mysia, who died in 241 B. C, a great change was 
made. He retained dialectic, the method of oral 
instruction instituted by Plato, but broke with the 
traditions of his predecessors by treating every prop- 
osition as an open question. In his own lectures 
he laid down no definite views, but refuted those of 
other philosophers and trained his pupils in arguing 
indifferently for and against any given thesis. The 
Stoics were the opponents with whom he came chiefly 
into collision, and the controversy turned on the ques- 
tion whether knowledge could be attained through 
the senses by the Stoic criterion. This, as we have 
seen, was an apprehensive presentation which, on 
their view, guaranteed its own truth and the reality 
of its object by the conviction of immediate certainty. 
Arcesilas himself admitted no standard of truth, but 
he was willing to meet the Stoics on their own ground 
and refute them from their own premisses. The 
certain apprehension for which they contended con- 
sists in the assent of the mind to the peculiar kind 



318 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

of presentation called apprehensive. This appre- 
hension of certainty was, they declared, not peculiar 
to the wise man whose every intellectual act is knowl- 
edge, but is also to be found in the great majority 
of unwise mankind with whom, however, it takes 
the form of opinion. Arcesilas fastened on this as 
an inconsistency. Apprehension of objective reality 
must, he affirmed, be either scientific knowledge in 
the sage or mere opinion in the unwise. On Stoic 
principles, he contended, there is no room for any 
intermediate state of mind in which both classes of 
men share. This amounts to calling simple appre- 
hension a logical abstraction; so much the Stoics 
might safely concede. But their opponent went fur- 
ther. First he challenged the possibility of giving 
assent to a presentation; he argued that the object of 
assent was a proposition, not a perception. It is not 
sensations we approve but judgments of the reason. 
Arcesilas next appealed to reason. He denied that 
there was such a thing as a perception which in Stoic 
phrase apprehends objective reality. By various ar- 
guments he endeavoured to show that none of our 
perceptions possess this guarantee of their own truth, 
for the same certainty of conviction might accompany 
a false perception. If, then, we can never be sure 
that a presentation is true, we can never be sure that 
by assenting to it we are apprehending objective 
reality and are forced to conclude that the world 
of real objects remains incognisable. From this con- 
clusion necessarily followed suspense of judgment, 
and in his controversy with the Stoics Arcesilas could 
enforce this by an argumentum ad hominem. The 
Stoics, as we have seen, did not uphold all affirma- 
tions of the senses, but laid down conditions which 
must be fulfilled before the evidence of the senses 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 319 

could be accepted. If these conditions were not 
satisfied, the Stoic sage had no option; he must per- 
force withhold assent. For, if he yields assent with- 
out sufficient evidence, he descends from the high 
ground of scientific knowledge to mere fallible 
opinion, often shown by subsequent experience to be 
erroneous. Arcesilas with much ingenuity readily 
adopted the Stoic tenet that the sage will never opine. 
He trusted to his dialectical skill to convince his 
opponents that, as they would never be in a position 
to do aught else but opine, they must, if consistent, 
fall back into his own attitude of suspended judgment. 1 
Cicero sums up the controversy between the dog- 
matist and the sceptic as follows: "It appears to 
Arcesilas possible to refrain from opining, and not 
only possible but indispensable that the sage should 
do so. Such behaviour was quite in keeping with the 
character of the sage. Very likely he asked Zeno 
what would happen if it were neither possible for the 
wise man to apprehend with certainty, nor becoming 
in him to opine. Zeno, I dare say, replied that the 
wise man would not opine because there was an 
object capable of being known and apprehended. 
What, pray, was that object ? A presentation, to be 
sure. Of what sort, then ? Zeno, I imagine, gave 
his definition as follows: 'A presentation impressed, 
stamped, and engraven upon the mind, a presentation 
which comes from a real object and represents that 
object as it is.' And did this hold, was the rejoinder, 
even if a true presentation were indistinguishable 
from a false one ? This question brought home to a 
man of Zeno's shrewdness that if a presentation of a 
real object was indistinguishable from that of an 
unreal object, it was impossible for any presentation 

1 Sextus Emp., Adv. Math., VII, 153 sqq. 



320 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

to be apprehended and known. Arcesilas made no 
objection to his adding to the definition the qualifying 
clause 'such as could not come from an unreal object.' 
We cannot know what is false : neither can we know 
what is true if the true is everywhere indistinguish- 
able from the false. He threw his whole energies 
into the task of proving that there is no presentation 
of a real object that is not indistinguishable from a 
false presentation of an unreal object." 1 

In Arcesilas we seem to discern a somewhat dif- 
ferent phase of scepticism from that of Phyrro, and 
this impression is confirmed by the fact that Arcesilas 
was one of the philosophers whom Pyrrho's pupil 
Timon satirised in the Silli. There he is described 
as a sort of chimera or fabulous creature of triple 
form: 

Plato the head of him; Pyrrho the tail; midway 
Diodorus. 2 

Pyrrho had combated popular opinions, popular 
customs, and popular beliefs on empirical grounds. 
Arcesilas, a learned philosopher, combated a scien- 

1 Cicero, Acad. Pr., II, 77. 

2 Diogenes Laertius, IV, 35. The line is a parody of Homer, Iliad, VI, 
181, where the Chimera is said to be "in front a lion and behind a ser- 
pent and in the midst a goat." Diodorus Cronus of Iasus in Caria, 
one of the last adherents of the Megarian school, was a pupil of Apol- 
lonius, himself a pupil of Eubulides. Like the other Megarian philos- 
ophers, he was an acute dialectician and the inventor of sophistical 
puzzles on the impossibility of motion and change, which have come 
down to us. The surname Cronus, which was also borne by his teacher 
Apollonius, alludes to his argumentative skill; "crooked-counselling 
Cronus" is a stock epithet in Homer. There is no evidence that Ar- 
cesilas had ever been ostensibly a pupil of Diodorus any more than of 
Pyrrho. He had been a disciple of Theophrastus until Crantor gained 
him for the Academy. But the later Megarians had a great reputation, 
and their sophistical puzzles enjoyed wide popularity. Arcesilas, we 
may be sure, would not fail to profit by the example of such masters in 
the art of polemical controversy. Cf. p. 325. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 321 

tific system and an infallible criterion by means of 
dialectic. A consideration of the contradictions in 
our ordinary perceptions and notions led Pyrrho to 
deny that there could be any truth in them. Arcesilas 
was not concerned to deny that conceivably our per- 
ceptions might contain the truth, but to maintain that 
any truth they might conceivably contain could not 
be known by us. Hence there is nothing in Pyrrho's 
position inconsistent with the search after truth. 
Like Socrates, he has been foiled hitherto, but he 
can invite us again and again to renew the search 
and set out on the investigation of opinions. Arcesi- 
las is not in a position to search for truth. We may 
even already possess it, but at any rate we cannot 
distinguish it with any certainty from error. He is 
not stating a fact but settling a question of principle. 
The Pyrrhoneans report that truth has not yet been 
found, but they are willing to seek it. Arcesilas 
believes that not only is truth not yet found but that it 
is impossible to find it, true presentations being in- 
distinguishable from false. Arcesilas left nothing in 
writing, and we really know very little of his views. 
But it would seem that even in the region of practice 
he diverged altogether from Pyrrho. So far from 
recommending men to be insensible to their environ- 
ment and to regard all objects with indifference, 
Arcesilas fell back upon opinion, which he main- 
tained to be a sufficient guide for action. There was 
no need to wait for absolute knowledge; a reasonable 
probability was adequate. For, if happiness was the 
end, the degree to which this end was realised could 
be measured by the successful result of our conduct, 
whether absolute knowledge or mere opinion, whether 
certainty or probability formed the basis of that 
conduct. 



322 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

A century later Carneades of Cyrene (213-129 
B. C.) won the admiration of his contemporaries and 
of succeeding generations by his commanding elo- 
quence and genius for polemical controversy. Like 
Socrates, Pyrrho, and Arcesilas, he himself left noth- 
ing in writing, but the results of his inquiries were 
transmitted to posterity by the industry of his favour- 
ite pupil Clitomachus, the author of some four hundred 
treatises. When Carneades became the head of the 
Academy he soon restored its reputation, which had 
suffered since the death of Arcesilas. Before this he 
had learned the Stoic logic under Diogenes the Baby- 
lonian, the successor of Chrysippus, and he made the 
writings of Chrysippus himself his chief philosophical 
study. Throughout his career he acknowledged his 
obligations to that master of acute and subtle argu- 
ment whose constructive work it was the task of his 
lifetime to overthrow. " But for Chrysippus, where 
should I have been ?" was his parody of the current 
saying, "But for Chrysippus, where had been the 
Porch ?" Later Stoics, on the other hand, professed 
to discover a design of Providence in the fact that 
Chrysippus lived midway between Arcesilas and 
Carneades; according to them Chrysippus not only 
repelled the attacks already made, but demolished 
by anticipation the arguments of the yet more formi- 
dable assailant who was to follow. The personal 
influence of Carneades was as remarkable as his skill 
in controversy. Such was the charm he exercised 
that some of his rivals quitted their own class-rooms 
to attend his lectures. The force of his polemic may 
be measured by the modifications and innovations 
which, for a time at least, it was fashionable to in- 
troduce into Stoicism in order to meet his criticisms. 
Unquestionably he was the greatest philosopher of 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 323 

Greece in the four centuries from Chrysippus to 
Plotinus; indeed, in ability and depth of thought 
he surpassed Chrysippus. Plato's transcendent ge- 
nius overshadowed all his successors, but in the 
illustrious roll of his disciples Carneades is not un- 
worthy of a place beside Aristotle and Plotinus. 
It was, however, on the negative and destructive 
not the positive and constructive side that he as- 
similated the spirit and method of Plato. With the 
ideal theory and with Plato's sanguine hope of re- 
generating mankind the apostle of agnosticism had 
nothing in common. Scepticism with him had a 
wider range and a higher aim than with his prede- 
cessors. His task was twofold, to refute all existing 
dogmas and to evolve a theory of probability which 
might serve as a basis for action. This last is the 
more original contribution, although, as we shall see, 
it ultimately led to the abandonment of the sceptical 
position. 

We have first, then, to summarise the negative and 
destructive criticism which Carneades directed against 
the epistemology, the ethics, the teleology, and natu- 
ral theology of contemporary schools and primarily 
of the Stoics. If certainty is attainable, as the dog- 
matists hold, there must be a standard or criterion, 
whether it be reason or the senses or an infallible pres- 
entation, by which we can discriminate truth from 
falsehood. In denying the possibility of any such 
standard of truth Carneades restated and reinforced 
the general argument of Arcesilas. There could be 
no such standard for sense-perception since pres- 
entations or impressions of sense were frequently 
found to be deceptive. This consequence is inevit- 
able so long as we adhere to the Stoic doctrine of what 
presentation to sense really is, namely, a modification 



324 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

or change in the soul which furnishes information, 
not merely about itself, but about the external object 
which caused it. For this external cause is known by 
its effects alone, and wherever these conflict we have 
no means, so far as present sensation is concerned, 
of deciding which of them are true and which of 
them are false. Certainty of conviction, if the Stoics 
make this their criterion, attaches to presentations 
which are afterward discovered to be false. It is not, 
then, in the nature of presentation as such, but only 
in the true presentation that a standard can be 
sought. 

Carneades then proceeded to state that (i) there 
are false presentations; (2) such false presentations 
may pass for true; (3) if two presentations pre- 
sent no distinguishing marks, they cannot be re- 
garded, the one as true, the other as false; (4) there 
is no presentation by the side of which cannot be 
placed a false presentation, which is, notwithstanding, 
indistinguishable from the true. The first proposi- 
tion was never disputed except by Epicurus; the 
third was allowed on all hands. It was on the 
second and fourth propositions that the stress of 
controversy turned. Carneades and Clitomachus ex- 
pended their whole ingenuity in proving them, de- 
fining and analysing with wearisome minuteness, and 
pressing into their service the abnormal phenomena 
which are always in favour when psychology is in 
an imperfect state. In dreams and trances we are 
moved by unreal presentations as powerfully as if 
they were true. Sane men may be subject to hal- 
lucinations and mad men are the prey of delusions. 
But if impressions of sense are fallible, it is in vain to 
look to the understanding for a remedy since general 
notions, on the Stoic view, are based on experience. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 325 

They are elaborated from sense-impressions and re- 
quire constantly to be verified by reference to sense. 
Moreover, it has been the work of logic to develop 
and work out a system of notions and concepts, and 
yet logic is honeycombed with fallacies and sophistical 
problems for which no solution can be found even by 
Chrysippus. Such were the Mentiens or Liar, the 
Electra and similar puzzles which the ingenuity of the 
Megarian sect excogitated to disturb the repose of 
unwary reasoners in all ages. 1 Such was also that 
favourite but dangerous instrument of Chrysippus, 
the Sorites, or chain-argument, which showed how 
hard it was to define and draw exact limits, in 
quantitative distinctions especially, for, when asked 
whether three are few or many, even he borrowed a 
weapon from the armoury of the Sceptics by sus- 
pension of judgment and refusal to answer. In 
addition there was the contradiction inherent in the 
very nature of knowledge which the Sophists exposed 
when they asked how learning was possible, since 
some previous acquaintance with the thing to be 
learned was presupposed. 

, But Carneades was not content with a formal 
denial that knowledge was possible. An abstract 
proposition of this kind could never carry much 

1 E. g. some one (let us hope a Cretan) says: "I am telling a lie." Is 
this proposition true or false? Logicians are asked to decide. This is 
the problem called The Liar. Again, Orestes disguised meets his sister 
Electra. Does she or does she not know her brother? This is the 
Electra. Six of these fallacies or sophistical puzzles are ascribed to the 
Megarian Eubulides, Diog. Laert, II, 108, but some of them at least 
were current before his time. They are: (i) The Mentiens or Liar; 
(2) the person disguised or hidden under a veil; (3) Electra (a variety 
of the last); (4) Sorites, "How many grains make a heap?" (5) Cor- 
nutus, some one asks: "Have you shed your horns?" a categorical 
answer Yes or No being required; (6) The Bald Man (a variety of the 
Sorites). Cj. Grote, Plpto, III, 482-490. 



326 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

weight. Students of the sciences pursue their re- 
searches unremittingly and derive satisfaction from 
watching the continuous growth of their acquisitions, 
even if they are sensible that as the circle of knowl- 
edge widens its circumference also widens and the 
margin where the known abuts upon the unknown 
must, in consequence, be always growing greater. 
Carneades felt it incumbent upon him to examine the 
results of all previous investigations and to demon- 
strate their worthlessness. If the scientific method 
of his time was, as he contended, unsound, its con- 
clusions must be invalid and it was his business to 
show this in detail. Here again, as in the formal 
theory of knowledge, his chief adversaries were the 
Stoics. Their most notable achievement, their ethi- 
cal system, afforded many opportunities for attack. 
It was inconsistent, he argued, to refuse the name of 
good to the objects of natural desire, while at the same 
time maintaining virtue to be nothing but an activity 
directed to the choice of them. It is said that his 
polemic on this point led Antipater and other heads 
of the school to modify the traditional formula for the 
end of action. For some time, in what is called the 
middle period of Stoicism, the attempt was made to 
bring the objects of natural desire into closer relation 
to morality, the end being defined as doing all things 
for the sake of obtaining the primary objects of 
natural desire. Cicero affirms that whereas the ear- 
lier Stoics had declared reputation, especially post- 
humous fame, to be a thing absolutely indifferent, the 
vigorous onslaughts of Carneades forced their suc- 
cessors to concede it a place among things preferred. 
But if the science of the Stoics was subordinate to 
their ethics they nevertheless declared it to be a self- 
contained system impregnable to attack. It culmi- 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 327 

nated in the teleological theory of the universe, the 
doctrine of the existence and nature of God, and his 
providential care for man, of which the divinely 
ordered course of events, including the means of 
prophecy and divination, was the outcome. Fortu- 
nately the ample materials preserved by Cicero 1 and 
by Sextus Empiricus 2 enable us to reproduce, with 
tolerable accuracy, the Academic criticism of these 
doctrines. Cicero's spokesman in the dialogue on 
the nature of the gods first examines the evidence 
adduced by the Stoics for the divine existence. They 
had appealed, like Epicurus, to the consensus gen- 
tium, the universal belief that gods exist. If, replied 
their opponent, the belief is universal and necessary, 
it is worse than useless to attempt to rest it upon 
argument, which simply raises doubts as to the 
validity of the belief. But is there such an universal 
belief? It was easy to reply that, in the sense re- 
quired by the argument, it neither was nor could be 
universal. The sight of the starry heavens may 
strike multitudes, even Kant himself, with awe, but 
it failed to convince the Epicureans that nature or the 
universe is a living, rational being. On the con- 
trary, they denied that either the stars or the universe 
have life. Besides, urges Carneades, it is strange to 
commit the question to the judgment of the ignorant 
multitude, when the Stoics tell us that the majority 
of mankind are fools. As to the alleged appearances 
of the gods in human form to men of old, the Aca- 
demic asks for evidence, and until this is forthcoming 
he dismisses them as rumours and old wives' fables. 
Then again the Stoics appealed to divination and 
the manner in which portents and prophecies came 
true. To this the reply is that, if all is foreordained, 

1 Cicero, De Nat. Deor., III. 2 Sextus Emp., Adv. Math., IX. 



328 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

the knowledge of futurity is not advantageous, but 
harmful to men, while the mistakes of diviners throw 
discredit on the whole art of divination. If it were 
really an art, it would rest on rational principles, 
like the art of medicine, but, as practised in antiquity, 
divination was merely a matter of routine and tradi- 
tion. The belief in the gods, no doubt, arose in part 
from awe-inspiring natural phenomena. 

This proposition Carneades was as little inclined 
to dispute as Epicurus, but he is careful to point out 
that the question of the origin, as distinct from the 
validity, of the belief is irrelevant. For what are the 
Stoics concerned to prove ? Is it that men believe in 
the gods or is it that the gods really exist ? If the 
former, their argument is sound; if the latter, it is 
worthless. Zeno, in treating of the divine nature, 
had reasoned thus: What is rational is more excel- 
lent than what is irrational. Nothing is more excel- 
lent than the universe, therefore the universe is 
rational and exercises reason. Here, as the Aca- 
demic points out, there is an ambiguity in the term 
"excellent." The universe may be beautiful, it may 
be adapted to our convenience, and hence we may 
pronounce it excellent. But this is no ground for 
declaring it to be wise or to exercise reason. Before 
that can be inferred it must be proved to be animate, 
otherwise there is just as much ground for inferring 
that the city of Rome, or the universe itself, is musical, 
mathematical, or philosophical. Nor can the regu- 
larity of the celestial movements prove the divinity 
of the stars, for there are certain terrestrial phenom- 
ena, such as the tides, the tertian and quartan fevers, 
which are also regular in their recurrence. Are they, 
therefore, divine ? Chrysippus, again, had argued 
that what man is not able to produce must have been 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 329 

produced by a higher being, i. e., by deity. But this 
inference is open to the same objection, namely, that 
by the term "higher" two different points of view are 
confounded. There may, indeed, be a being higher 
than man, but why must this being be rational and 
man-like? Why not nature herself ? What grounds 
are there for an anthropomorphic conception of 
nature ? Nor is there any more force in another 
argument of Chrysippus. The sight of a beautiful 
house, he says, suggests the idea of the owner for 
whom it was built. As every house was destined to 
be inhabited, the universe must be intended for the 
habitation of God. If the universe were a house, 
is the rejoinder, it might be so, but the very point at 
issue is whether the universe is a house or not, whether 
it has been constructed for a definite purpose, or 
whether it is simply an undesigned result of natu- 
ral forces. Socrates had asked: Whence comes the 
rational soul of man if there is not a rational soul in 
the universe ? If there is not, Carneades replies, the 
human mind and its faculties are merely spontaneous 
products of nature acting according to her own laws. 
Again, Chrysippus had insisted 1 on the organic unity 
of the world and the correlation and mutual inter- 
dependence of all its parts. Suppose this granted, 
there would still be no reason to accept his infer- 
ence that the cause of all this harmony is a divine 
spirit or Pneuma which permeates and gives life to 
all things and connects them together in one organic 
whole. For the coherence and permanence of nature 
may be due to natural forces and not to the gods. 

It will be seen from the foregoing that Carneades 
assailed the real cardinal dogmas of Stoic theology. 
It was not for him to call in question the existence 

1 Cicero, De Nat. Deor., II, 19. 



330 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

of the gods, but to criticise the belief in an eternal 
world-soul or universal reason and the doctrine of 
providence. The attitude of the critic must not be 
misunderstood. He was a pure agnostic. Osten- 
sibly he put forward no positive view; his object is 
merely to show that the Stoic conceptions were un- 
tenable; that in attempting to define the nature of the 
gods they merely succeeded in proving their non-exist- 
ence. The attributes assigned to the Stoic deity were 
contradictory, and the critic proved this from Stoic 
premisses, but, as we shall see, this acute thinker 
used arguments which go much further than this 
and bring to light the fundamental difficulties in 
any conception of God, whether He be conceived as 
personal or impersonal, finite or infinite, or veiled 
under some abstraction as the absolute or the un- 
conditioned. In the audacity of his excursion into 
this region of thought Carneades has never been 
surpassed. Hume and Mansel do but restate his 
arguments adapted to modern conditions. 1 In the 
ordinary view, if not by the Stoics, God is regarded 
as at once an infinite and an individual being. But 
we cannot, it is said, apply to Him the characteristics 
of personal existence without limiting His nature. 

Carneades, as we learn from Sextus, 2 started by 
proving what the Stoics never denied, that God is an 
animate being, since what is animate is better than 
what is inanimate. From this he develops the logical 
consequences implied in our conception of such a 
being and derived wholly from experience. An ani- 
mate being is body possessed of soul, and within our 
experience every animal possesses sensation. The 

1 Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; Mansel, Bampton 
Lectures on the Limits oj Religious Thought, esp. Lect. VII; Cf. Sextus 
Emp., IX, 152-181. 2 Sextus Emp., I. c, IX, 152. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 331 

body of an animal must be either simple or com- 
posite, i. e. y it must consist of a single element or be 
a compound of several elements. Of the first al- 
ternative we have no experience, while in composite 
bodies, just because each element tends to fly apart 
to its proper sphere, decomposition is inevitable. 
Whatever, then, is corporeal is discerptible and there- 
fore perishable. Body, as we know it, is everywhere 
liable to disintegration; none being indivisible, all 
bodies must be dissoluble and liable to be broken up 
into their component parts. Again, whatever is com- 
posed of changing elements is itself liable to change 
and therefore perishable; therefore all animals are 
mortal. We have seen how the Stoics, following 
Heraclitus, met these objections, affirming the present 
order of the universe to be perishable while its sub- 
stance remains eternal. But the Stoic deity, though 
corporeal, is endowed with life and soul. The suc- 
ceeding arguments turn on these attributes. What- 
ever is animate is capable of feeling and susceptible 
to external impressions, and therefore liable to de- 
struction, for if it is susceptible to impressions it 
must be affected by them and suffer from them. If 
it suffers from them it must be liable to disruption 
and disintegration, and therefore perishable. Again, 
every animate being, if capable of feeling, is sus- 
ceptible of pleasure and pain, but whatever experi- 
ences pain is also mortal. These objections assume 
the Stoic theory of sensation, a presentation as de- 
fined by Chrysippus being nothing more than a 
modification or change in the soul, and sensation 
without the feeling of pleasure or pain being incon- 
ceivable. But whatever is liable to change is liable 
to deterioration, and whatever is liable to pain, which 
is caused by deterioration, is liable to suffer, to be 



332 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

disintegrated and destroyed. Again, the Stoics taught 
that every animal has an instinctive desire for what 
is in harmony with its nature, an instincitve dislike 
of what is contrary to its nature. But whatever is 
contrary to the nature of a being is destructive of its 
life Moreover, the very things which normally pro- 
duce sensation, things hot and cold, pleasant and pain- 
ful, are, when in excess, destructive to life. Hence 
everything that lives is exposed to annihilation. 

Some of the foregoing arguments, it may be noted, 
are equally applicable to the Epicurean gods. Against 
the Heraclitean and Stoic identification of deity with 
warm breath or fiery ether, the following objection 
was taken: There is no reason to suppose that fire 
is more akin to divinity than the other elements. 
It is not more essential to life than they are; if it is 
the cause of feeling in man, it must, on Stoic grounds 
itself, be susceptible of feeling and therefore liable 
to destruction; moreover, fire is not self-existent but 
needs fuel for its support. 

But God, to the Stoics, is a rational being endowed 
with all excellence. It is easy to show that virtue, 
as we understand it, is incompatible with this idea 
of the divine nature. Every virtue supposes an im- 
perfection, in overcoming which it consists. To be 
brave, a man must be exposed to danger; to be 
magnanimous, he must be exposed to misfortunes. 
To be temperate, he must resist pleasure; to display 
endurance, he must conquer pain. Take the four 
cardinal virtues in detail. Shall we attribute to God 
wisdom, which consists in a knowledge of good and 
evil and of things morally indifferent ? What need 
has a being in whom there is not and cannot be any 
evil to discriminate between good and evil ? And 
what need has he of reason or apprehension, which 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 333 

we employ for the purpose of obtaining by means of 
the evident a knowledge of the obscure, whereas to 
God nothing can be obscure ? As for justice, the 
virtue which assigns to each his due, how is it ap- 
propriate to the gods ? For it was the product, the 
Stoics maintain, of human fellowship and association. 
Temperance consists in foregoing sensual pleasures; 
but is this a virtue compatible with the divine nature ? 
And how can God be conceived of as brave ? Is he 
so in respect to pain or labour or danger, not one of 
which things affects him ? And yet, if these four 
virtues are excluded, how can we conceive of a God 
who exercises neither reason nor virtue. 1 Or how 
conceive of a being in perpetual bliss who is capable 
of feeling pleasure but incapable of feeling pain ? 
Pleasure can only be known by contrast with pain, 
and the possibility of heightening and augmenting 
life always supposes the possibility of lowering and 
diminishing it. Nor is it otherwise with the intelli- 
gence displayed in the adaptation of means to an end. 
He alone is thus intelligent who always discovers 
what will subserve his purpose. If, however, he 
must discover it, it cannot have been previously 
known to him. Hence this intelligence can only 
belong to a being who is ignorant about much. Such 
a being, then, has his limitations. He can never feel 
sure whether sooner or later something will not cause 
his ruin. He will therefore be exposed to fear. A 
being susceptible of pleasure and exposed to pain, a 
being who has to contend with dangers and diffi- 
culties, and who feels pain and fear, must inevitably, 
so thought Carneades, be finite and destructible. If, 
therefore, we cannot conceive of God, except in this 
form, we cannot conceive of him at all. 

1 Cicero, De Nat. Deor., Ill, 38 sqq. 



334 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Nor do the difficulties diminish when we pass from 
the divine nature to divine providence, the second 
cardinal dogma of Stoic theology. As we have seen, 
their world-soul or immanent reason works by final 
causes and ordains all events for the good of the 
several parts and especially for the benefit and wel- 
fare of the rational creature man. In support of this 
belief the Stoics pointed to evident marks of adapta- 
tion and design. Carneades could easily show that 
the evidence was inconclusive. Whence, he asks, so 
many pernicious and destructive agencies on land 
and sea ? Why, for instance, if the world was made 
for the safety of man, were poisonous snakes created ? 
But, it may be urged, man is, after all, a rational 
being, and God's providential care is manifest in the 
bestowal of this supreme endowment. Carneades 
rejoined boldly that the gift of reason is rather an 
injury than a benefit. Experience shows that the 
great majority of mankind only use it to make them- 
selves worse than brutes. So far, then, as they 
are concerned, what becomes of divine providence ? 
Again, right reason alone is beneficial to its possessor, 
and right reason is so rare that it cannot be derived 
from God, who would never have been guilty of 
partiality in his dealings with men. The objection 
is not met by the rejoinder that these evils arise from 
man's abuse of reason. The deity must have fore- 
seen that the bare gift of reason was liable to abuse 
and that such abuse could only be prevented by mak- 
ing reason infallible. 

Pressing still further the inconsistency between the 
two Stoic doctrines of divine providence and univer- 
sal folly and depravity, Carneades asks: How can 
it be said that man is the especial favourite of 
Heaven if it be true that lack of wisdom is the great- 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 335 

est of all evils and that all men lack wisdom ? If 
God really cared for men, he ought to have made all 
men good or at least to have rewarded the righteous 
and punished the wicked. Suffering virtue and tri- 
umphant vice is inconsistent with any scheme of moral 
government. To maintain that piety is regularly re- 
warded and impiety regularly punished is to shut our 
eyes to the numerous negative instances, and even 
such imperfect retribution as we may then discover 
in this world is the natural result of human agency. 
Intentional neglect is a great fault in a human ruler, 
and in a divine ruler there can be no such thing as 
unintentional neglect. The special pleading of Chry- 
sippus meets with little mercy. When, adapting the 
legal maxim de minimis non curat lex, he urged that 
minora dei neglegunt the reply was that life and liberty 
are not minora. To the Stoic, it is true, all external 
things are minima in comparison with virtue; but 
then it is just these external things which are at the 
disposal of Heaven. Virtue the Stoic sage must win 
for himself; it is the one thing which is always in 
his own power. Consequently it is himself, not God, 
that he credits with it. If it be argued that vice is 
punished in the descendants of the guilty person, 
what should we say to such justice in a human ruler ? 
Moreover, how can God punish if He be incapable of 
anger ? If His power is not equally exerted in helping 
the good, it must be that He lacks either the will or the 
knowledge to do this. If His care does not extend to 
individuals, what reason is there for believing that it 
extends to nations or to humanity at large ? The 
practice of divination, however, implies a particular 
supervision extending to the minutest details of each 
inidivdual's life. 

To return, however, to the main problem. We 



336 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

have seen the reasoning by which Carneades en- 
deavoured to prove that neither of the contradictory 
attributes, destructible or indestructible (or, in other 
words, mortal and immortal), can properly be ap- 
plied to God. How stands the case if the question 
be raised, Is He finite or infinite ? or the further 
question, Is He corporeal or incorporeal ? 1 If a thing 
exists, it is either finite of infinite. God is not in- 
finite, for then He would be immovable and inani- 
mate. For if that which is infinite moves it must 
move through space; it must move from place to 
place, and therefore be in place, and being in place 
it is limited or finite. If, then, there is anything 
infinite, it does not move, or, if anything moves, it is 
not infinite. And similarly that which is infinite is 
inanimate or without soul. For if permeated by a 
soul, this soul holds it together from centre to cir- 
cumference and from circumference to centre. But 
that which is infinite has neither centre nor circum- 
ference. Hence that which is infinite is inanimate. 
But we ordinarily think of God both as moving and 
as endowed with soul. It follows, then, that God is 
not infinite. But neither is He finite, for that which 
is finite is part of that which is infinite, and, since the 
whole is superior to the part, the infinite is superior 
to the finite. But it is absurd that anything should 
be superior to God or to the divine nature. Again, 
if a thing exists, it is either corporeal or incorporeal. 
God is not incorporeal, since that which is incorporeal 
is inanimate, devoid of life and sensation and inca- 
pable of activity. Nor, again, is He corporeal, since 
all that is corporeal is liable to change, and therefore 
destructible, whereas, that which is divine is held to 

1 Sextus Emp., Adv. Math., IX, 148-151, 180, 181; cf. Cicero, De 
Nat. Deor., Ill, 29-34. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 337 

be indestructible. Or otherwise thus, if God is cor- 
poreal, He is either a compound of simple elements 
or consists of a single simple element. If a com- 
pound, He is destructible, for every formation result- 
ing from the union of elements must be destroyed by 
the dissolution of those elements. But if He is a 
single elementary body, whether fire, air, water, or 
earth, He is without life and without reason, which is 
absurd. It appears, then, that neither of the con- 
tradictory attributes can be predicated of the subject, 
neither infinite nor finite, neither corporeal nor in- 
corporeal. The conclusion is that there can be no 
subject for predication. All the forms under which 
we think of God being impossible, His existence can- 
not be asserted. 

Here we may be allowed to pause and offer a few 
remarks upon this vigorous polemic. First, it is 
curious to observe how far Carneades has anticipated 
much of subsequent metaphysic; his reasoned ob- 
jections when translated into English run almost 
insensibly into modern philosophical language. The 
argument from design, as it is commonly called, goes 
back to Socrates; even before the Stoics took it up 
it had been so clearly stated by Xenophon, Plato, and 
Aristotle that it is no wonder Carneades felt it in- 
cumbent upon him to criticise it. In doing this he 
placed himself at the level of his opponents. He 
shared their imperfections; he was no better able 
than they were to detect the errors in the popular 
science of the day. Nor had he either the capacity 
or the inclination to undertake physical research. 
Many of his objections are little better than fallacies 
of a transparent kind. He saw more acutely than 
the Stoics the difficulties of the problem, and secured 
many a dialectical triumph by pointing to the ab- 



338 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

surdities in the details of their anthropomorphic 
scheme. But his method of criticism necessarily im- 
plied that, at least provisionally, he accepted the 
anthropomorphic conception himself. The deity he 
rejects is, after all, only a magnified and non-natural 
man with more than a man's might and much of a 
man's caprice. With him, as with the Stoics, the 
divine differs from the human in degree, not in kind. 
He never rises above this conception and hence falls 
far short, not only of Plato's ideal of absolute perfec- 
tion, but even of Aristotle's transcendent First Cause. 
The Greek intellect had already made great strides 
toward a purer conception of deity from the age when 
Xenophanes denounced Homer and Hesiod together 
with the whole fabric of lying legends and polytheistic 
immoralities down to the time when Aris.totle re- 
alised the impossibility of ascribing human virtues 
to God, and carefully eliminated as many attributes 
as possible from his First Cause. Carneades, it 
would seem, failed utterly to appreciate this advance. 
He appears not to have comprehended even the 
higher side of pantheism, the doctrine of a spirit of 
law and order working in the world, apostrophised 
by Cleanthes as "Nature's great king, who by thy 
just decree controllest all." Otherwise he would 
never have supposed that he had answered the Stoics 
when he proposed to substitute Nature for God. 
In comparison with the gross confusion of God and 
matter which degraded the divine without raising the 
material, his dim perception of a natural growth 
apart from any divine providence is attractive, we 
may even say lofty. But for the most part it was the 
lower side of Stoic pantheism that he chose to attack, 
and his ingenious syllogisms enabled him to score a 
series of fruitless argumentative victories. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 339 

To give some further details. It is objected that 
God cannot possess virtue because virtue is above its 
possessor and there can be nothing above God. 1 
This objection, resting as it does on a confusion of the 
abstract with the concrete, can hardly have been 
meant to be taken seriously, for in arguing against 
the Stoic deification of abstractions Carneades is 
careful to point out that the virtues are but qualities 
of the human agents in whom they reside. So, 
again, the anthropomorphic conception suggests the 
inquiry whether speech and language can be ascribed 
to the deity. 2 To deny this attribute was opposed to 
the general belief; to affirm it can be shown to lead 
to the grossest absurdities. Speech, as we understand 
it, implies the possession of vocal organs, and we are 
straightway landed in the cruder anthropomorphic 
details of Epicurean theology. The use of speech 
implies conversation, and the language employed 
must be that of some particular nation, either Greek 
or a foreign tongue. If Greek it must be some partic- 
ular dialect, Attic or iEolic or some other. But why 
should a preference be given to one dialect over 
another ? Moreover, if the language employed be 
Greek, a foreign tongue would have to be acquired 
presumably by instruction. Every one of these sup- 
positions teems with absurdities. Once more, Car- 
neades was not less concerned to attack than his 
opponents to defend the ordinary polytheism. As 
we have seen, the Stoics regarded the many gods of 
the popular faith as manifestations of one supreme 
power. In any case, polytheism was a witness to the 
universal belief and was entitled to respect in so far 
as it rested upon usage and tradition, and formed part 

1 Sextus Emp., Adv. Math., IX, 176. 

2 Sextus Emp., /. c, IX, 178; Cicero, De Nat. Deor. 



340 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

of the established social order. The method of at- 
tack chosen was by sorites or chain-syllogisms which, 
as we are informed, were greatly admired and often 
quoted by Clitomachus. 1 Here are some specimens. 
If Zeus be a god, his brother Poseidon is a god; if 
Poseidon, Achelous; if Achelous, the Nile; if the 
Nile, any river; if any river, then any mountain tor- 
rent. But mountain torrents are not gods; then 
neither is Zeus a god. Again, if the sun is a god, 
then his appearance above the horizon, which we call 
day, is a god; if the day, the month; if the month, 
the year, which is a series of months; and similarly 
with morning, noon, evening, and other parts of 
time. But the year is not a god, then neither is the 
sun a god. Obviously, then, the popular belief has no 
distinctive mark by which to separate the divine from 
that which is not divine. It is refuted when the essen- 
tial dissimilarity between the two is established. It is 
characteristic of the sceptical Academy that in spite 
of this trenchant criticism Carneades never openly 
broke with the popular theology as Epicurus had done. 
There is no reason to doubt that he accepted the be- 
lief in the gods as an opinion more or less probable 
and useful for practical purposes. He claimed the 
Sceptic's privilege of abstaining from pronouncing a 
decided opinion for or against it. He neither, like 
Plato, cherished the kernel of truth disguised but not 
wholly concealed under mythology, nor like Zeno did 
he attempt to allegorise and rationalise it as perman- 
ently valuable from its old associations and present 
influence. He as far as possible disregarded it, ex- 
cept where he was concerned for controversial pur- 
poses to refute the Stoic system of interpretation of 
the myths by personification of material elements. 

1 Sextus Emp., Adv. Math., IX, 182 sqq. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 341 

So much for the negative and destructive criticism 
on which the fame of Carneades chiefly rests. But 
when he passed from theory to practice, the positive 
side of his teaching was no less remarkable. It was 
designed to meet the reproach which in all ages the 
dogmatists have levelled at their opponents, namely, 
that the convinced sceptic, if consistent, is reduced 
to inaction. If the moment we examine any im- 
pression of sense we find that the arguments for its 
trustworthiness or untrustworthiness exactly balance 
each other, what grounds are there for action ? Why 
give the preference to any one of our impressions over 
another, and by acting upon it abandon the only 
safeguard against error, suspension of judgment ? 
Pyrrho's quietism or absolute insensibility to environ- 
ment seemed justified by such considerations, but even 
Pyrrhonists, perceiving the absurdity of carrying it to 
all lengths, since complete inactivity would mean death, 
permitted men to follow appearances, as it was called, 
and be guided by custom in the various conjunctures 
of ordinary life. But could no better basis for action 
be found than the compulsion of circumstances; than 
habit, instinct, or association ? If the arguments for 
and against a particular judgment of sense exactly 
balanced each other, suspension of judgment would 
be the right attitude. But experience shows that as 
a rule the scales do incline decisively in one direction 
or the other. Thus probable judgments are formed, 
and though certainty is unattainable their probability 
admits of varying degrees. In order to introduce 
and establish such a calculus of probability it was 
necessary to make a new classification of presenta- 
tions; in other words, of impressions and ideas. 1 

1 Sextus Emp., Adv. Math., VII, 166-189 (the most accurate account); 
Cicero, Acad. Pr., II, 64-146, more especially 98-11. 



342 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

A presentation as defined by the Stoics was (i) a 
mental change or impression in the subject (2) caused 
by an external object. It therefore can be considered 
under a double aspect from a twofold point of view. 
In relation to the object the presentation is true when 
it agrees with the object, false in the contrary case. 
But in the absence of a criterion of truth this distinc- 
tion leads to no result, and we have already seen how 
decisively the Stoic criterion was rejected by Carne- 
ades. In relation, however, to the subject who has 
the presentation there is the really valuable distinction 
between presentations which appear to him true and 
those which appear to him false. The former we call 
probable, the latter improbable. Being necessarily 
ignorant of the relation of ideas to the objects they 
represent, we are reduced to judging them by their re- 
lation to ourselves, by the appearance of truthfulness, 
the greater or less clearness they have for us. Among 
those which appear true there are some which seem 
so only in a slight degree; the object may be small or 
too far off or our senses may be weak and present it 
only in a confused manner. These may be dismissed, 
as well as all which appear false; we have no use for 
them. Others, again, seem very probable the more 
we examine them. They may be false, but the 
chance of error does not hinder us from according 
them our assent; it is by them we regulate our judg- 
ment and action. The first condition, then, of ac- 
ceptance is that a presentation should be probable in 
itself, i. e., should excite a belief in its own truth 
apart from any extraneous support. But presenta- 
tions to sense do not occur in isolated fashion; they 
form a chain, a connected series. If I see a man I 
see him as part of a sensible continuum, I perceive 
his figure, height, colour, movement, speech, dress, 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 343 

and shoes; I am aware of the air, light, time of day, 
sky, earth, and the friends which form the accom- 
paniments of his environment. The absence of any 
of these accompaniments awaken suspicion of the 
presentation. Thus Menelaus, having left a phantom 
Helen on board ship, cannot believe his eyes when he 
sees the true Helen at Pharos. The previous false 
impression is a hinderance to the acceptance of the 
true one. When, on the contrary, all the concomi- 
tants are present, this is so far a guarantee of truth. 
The second condition, then, if we are to assent to the 
presentation, is that it should be unimpeached, that 
nothing in the series to which it belongs should dis- 
tract or hinder us from attending to it. When a 
presentation stands in connection with and is con- 
firmed by other presentations it reaches this higher 
grade of probability, which for most practical pur- 
poses is sufficient; in other words, the impression is 
confirmed by the agreement of related ideas. 

Lastly, there is a third and higher grade by which 
we may, if necessary, approximate still more closely 
to the certainty which is beyond our reach. The 
more important concerns of life require a closer 
attention and more than ordinary precaution. We 
may consider each of the concurrent presentations 
in detail and subject them to a severe scrutiny. Thus 
we examine the subject which has the presentations : 
Is he in health ? of sound mind ? The medium : 
Is the air thick ? the distance great ? Is the time 
or the place suitable ? The ordinary course of things 
seldom allows of all these precautions being taken. 
Suppose you see a coil of rope, which at first sight is 
taken for a serpent. The first impulse is to run away. 
On second thoughts you return and examine it; it is 
motionless. Probably it is not a serpent. But in 



344 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

winter all snakes hibernate. Give it a knock with a 
stick; if this has no effect you conclude that it is a 
coil of rope. Thus the effect of probable conviction 
is strengthened by cumulative evidence. Separate 
presentations may be false without our being able to 
detect the falsehood. All that we can do is to attach 
a tolerably accurate value to the "perhaps" since 
unconditional "yes" or "no" is beyond the reach 
of our faculties, and the more important the decision 
the more accuracy should we endeavour to attain. 
Higher and yet higher grades of probability approxi- 
mate to certitude as an asymptote to its curve without 
ever reaching it. Or we may put it thus: Carneades, 
like a true Sceptic, refuses altogether to make any 
assertion about the thing in itself, but having dis- 
tinguished the objective point of view from the sub- 
jective as clearly as any of the moderns, he substitutes 
for objective certitude a relative and qualified assent 
to the appearances or impressions of sense. He 
claims the right to speak and act like other men, pro- 
vided it be always understood that such speech and 
action implies no belief in the objective truth of im- 
pressions. 

Closely connected with this theory of probability 
is Carneades' defence of human freedom in opposition 
to the Stoic determinism. 1 If all events were con- 
nected by a chain of cause and effect necessity would 
be supreme. What, then, would be in our power ? 
Clearly he assumes that something is in our power, 
namely, to give or refuse our assent to an appearance 
of sense. This was, in fact, universally assumed. 
The Stoics started by laying down: (i) that every 
event and all movement has a cause — a physical 
principle; (2) that every proposition, whether about 

1 Cicero, De Fato, passim. Only part of this treatise is preserved. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 345 

the present or the future, is true or false — a logical 
axiom. From this it seems inevitably to follow (3) 
that every event is determined by previous events 
and, if so, is determined beforehand, is therefore 
certain and can be predicted. But if destiny is the 
universal law every event is necessary and there is 
no place for liberty. But none of the contemporary 
schools went so far. Thus Epicurus refuses to admit 
that when the atom swerves aside there is any cause 
for its declination or that a proposition relating to the 
future (e. g., Hermarchus will be either alive or dead 
to-morrow) is either true or false. The Stoics, on the 
other hand, were driven to accept determinism by a 
variety of impelling forces: by their physics, their 
support of divination, their theory of the organic 
unity of the world and the mutual inter-connection or 
"sympathy" between all its parts. They were bound, 
therefore, to accept the nexus of cause and effect in the 
endless chain of phenomena. Still, even they had not 
the least intention of denying that something is in our 
power. Hence Chrysippus, in order to save freedom 
(in his own restricted sense of the term), is obliged to 
excogitate a difference between destiny and necessity. 
There is, he maintains, the logical possibility of an 
event not happening although it is certain to happen. 
It can be predicted and yet at the same time be con- 
tingent. How was this position to be made good ? 
His expedient was a subtle distinction between 
primary or principal and proximate or subsidiary 
causes; a distinction analogous to the old Platonic 
and Aristotelian anithesis between cause and con- 
dition as explained, e. g., in the Phoedo. 1 According to 
Chrysippus, the preceding links in the chain of causa- 
tion, are indeed, causes of the events which they con- 

1 Cicero, De Fato, 41; cf. Plato, Phazdo, 98 C-99 D. 



346 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

dition, but they are only auxiliary or proximate, not 
principal causes. We see an object, desire of it 
ensues. Our assent is the principal cause, but the 
presentation or appearance is a secondary, proximate 
cause, the occasion, if you like, on which the true 
cause acts. External agency sets the roller in mo- 
tion, but it rolls of its own inherent nature. So, 
too, the external agency of presentation supplies the 
initial impulse, but individual assent and choice 
are the result of man's own nature. And, as Clean- 
thes had said, man is "free" to obey the universal 
law. 

Carneades profited by the weak points in such a 
theory. By a sorites he proved that it was impossible 
to admit destiny without denying liberty. If all events 
follow from antecedent external causes, all events are 
necessarily connected by a chain of causation. If so, 
necessity is the cause of all events. If so, nothing is 
in our power. But we are conscious that something 
is in our power, whereas if all happens by destiny 
all is due to antecedent external causes. Hence all 
does not happen by destiny. 1 To maintain this con- 
clusion it is not, he thought, necessary with Epicurus 
to deny that every event has a cause 2 or to dispute the 
logical validity of the disjunctive proposition relating 
to the future. It is sufficient to say that not every 
event is the result of antecedent external causes. Our 
will does not depend on such antecedent causes. 
When we say that a man's actions have no cause, we 
mean they are done without antecedent external 
cause, and not that they are done absolutely without 
a cause. The cause resides in the will, in the man's 
individual nature. Epicurus should have said that 
the atom swerves in obedience to the law of its own 

1 Cicero, De Fato, 31. 2 lb., 23. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 347 

nature by its own weight. In other words, alongside 
of the series of causes connected by natural necessity, 
causes are admitted which do not depend upon any 
antecedents — causes fortuitce non inclusce in rerum 
natura atque mundo — accidental causes, not of neces- 
sity subsisting in the nature of things and in the world. 
To this class belong the causes which render the 
proposition "Cato will come into the senate" true. 
The action of such causes cannot be foreseen or pre- 
dicted; only the event discovers that Philoctetes will 
be left at Lemnos or that GEdipus will turn parricide. 
Carneades, then, holds that every future proposition 
is true or false, but not that there are eternal and 
immutable causes which prevent things from hap- 
pening otherwise than they do happen. Past events 
are true because certified by experience; future 
events are true because they will hereafter be realised 
in experience. The future, then, is just as immu- 
table as the past because it is true, and this without 
resort to destiny or necessity. Thus, while Car- 
neades grants the truth of the disjunctive proposition 
relating to the future, he denies that it can be fore- 
seen, for, in his judgment, causality is not the same 
as invariable succession. He draws a distinction 
between matters of speculation and the ordinary af- 
fairs of human life, and in the latter he holds with 
Butler that " probability " is our guide. It will be seen 
that his arguments have a far wider bearing than on 
the Stoics whom he was immediately attacking. 

The whole of ethics as treated by Carneades is 
coloured by his theory of probability, but of the 
precise manner in which it was applied we have 
little information. Here as elsewhere he is first and 
foremost a critic. To the conception of an end in 
itself he made no opposition. The art of living can- 



348 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

not any more than any other art dispense with a 
moving principle, and therefore an ideal is requisite 
to give to action first an impulse and afterward 
consistency. Carneades begins 1 by laying down two 
requisites essential in his opinion to the concept of the 
highest good: (i) it must be accordant with, not 
opposed to, nature, and (2) it must be capable of 
exciting an impulse or a craving in the mind. He 
finds only three ends, or rather motives, which satisfy 
these conditions. They are pleasure, freedom from 
pain, and the primary objects of natural instinctive 
desire. The last phrase, as we have already seen, 
includes such things as self-preservation, bodily 
health, sound senses, beauty, and mental aptitudes. 
Again, each of the three ends proposed can be viewed 
in a double aspect, according as its mere attainment 
or the effort to attain it is regarded as the highest good. 
This would seem to furnish a table of six possible 
ideals of life. But as no one ever proposed the efFort 
to attain either pleasure or painlessness as an end in 
itself distinct from the result attained, the list of six 
possible ideals is reduced to four. To these four 
must be added three others, for in place of a single 
and simple highest good a composite ideal of life may 
be proposed by the union of two simple ends. This 
scheme of classification of all possible ends or ideals 
of conduct had a great vogue. The dogmas of con- 
temporary schools and of all moralists in the past 
could, without much violence, be adjusted to it. 
Thus the Cyrenaics and Epicurus, in spite of the 
great difference of their principles, were included 
under the first head as making pleasure the end. 
Freedom from pain, though it might with more reason 
have been claimed for Epicurus, was assigned to the 

1 Cicero, De Fin., V, 16 sqq. 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 349 

Peripatetic Hieronymus. The activity directed to 
the primary natural objects as distinct from their 
actual attainment was equated with the highest good 
proposed by the Stoics, or, in plain terms, with virtue 
and morality. Again, the complex ends, the union 
of virtue with pleasure or virtue with painlessness 
had actually found adherents in Callipho and Dio- 
dorus. 1 Finally, by a tour de force, the most cele- 
brated ethical doctrines of the past, the views of Plato 
and Aristotle and the schools they founded, the Old 
Academy and the Peripatetic, were relegated to the 
last place on the list as recognising in the highest 
good the union of primary natural advantages with 
virtue or the activity directed to their attainment. 

It is evident that the choice of an ideal will 
greatly modify our whole theory of right and wrong. 
The Epicurean conception of justice is wholly dif- 
ferent from that of the Stoics. Intellectual goodness 
and speculative activity hold a very different place 
in the systems of Aristotle and of the Stoics. Car- 
neades contented himself with classifying all possible 
ends and pointing out the results which follow from 
the selection of any one of them. But he declined 
to commit himself. He did not dogmatically assert 
what was the nature of the highest good. Indeed, 
his favourite disciple Clitomachus professed himself 
entirely ignorant of his master's real opinions on 
the subject. It can only have been for controversial 
purposes that, as we are told, he warmly defended 
at one time the attainment of primary natural ad- 
vantages and at another time Callipho's union of 
virtue and pleasure as the end of life. 2 He even con- 

1 Cicero, De Fin., V, 21. 

2 Cicero, Acad. Pr., II, 131, 139; cf. De Fin., II, 35, V, 20; Tusc. Disp., 
V,8 4 . 



350 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

tended that on the theory of good there was no es- 
sential difference between the Stoics and Peripatetics. 
The point at issue was not anything of fundamental 
importance but merely verbal quibbling and a change 
of terminology. Whatever his motive in making this 
assertion, it was often repeated by his followers and 
led to strange perversions of historical fact. In de- 
clining to make any particular choice among the 
conflicting ends, he acted in conformity not only with 
his own principles, but also to some extent with the 
temper of the age. Men had become far less con- 
fident that a strictly defined course of life would 
secure the happiness of the individual. Every species 
of end, it seemed, had already been proposed and it 
was not felt that any of these ends had conferred the 
anticipated benefit. Strict conformity to the letter 
had betrayed all sects into extravagance. From a 
position of neutrality, Carneades had the best op- 
portunity for criticising the extravagance of each in 
turn with sanity and moderation. The Stoics might 
accuse him of sapping the true grounds of morality, 
the Epicureans of putting forward a scheme of life 
which was poor in theory and impossible in practice. 
Yet something might fairly be said for a popular 
moral philosophy of which the two cardinal points 
were the belief that man's happiness does not depend 
upon any ethical theory, and the assertion that all 
received ethical theories do not go beyond probability, 
Holding such an intermediate position, Carneades 
could afford to be humane on questions where the 
Stcics were bound to be rigorously ascetic, and, if 
Chrysippus professed to find a cold consolation for 
the ills of life in the thought that no man is free from 
them, his critic, with more good taste and feeling, 
urged that to all but the malevolent the universality 



SCEPTICISM IN THE ACADEMY 351 

of suffering is its saddest aggravation. 1 The con- 
viction that the human faculties had but a limited 
range was, it is true, an outgrowth of Scepticism, but 
it was obvious that it might be so applied as to impair 
the rigid exclusiveness of rival systems and to favour 
the reaction to Eclecticism. 

It is a pity that we do not know more of the con- 
structive side of the philosophy of Carneades, that 
his destructive criticism has tended to obscure the 
other features of his system. The New Academy 
had begun with the Socratic profession of ignorance 
and the Socratic mode of examining opinions; it 
had employed the Pyrrhonean weapons merely as 
serviceable in assailing the Stoics and all who claimed 
absolute certitude. Such a procedure had its dangers; 
it might easily lead to consequences which the 
Academics had not foreseen and would not have 
indorsed, the dogmatic assertion that knowledge is 
impossible and the self-contradiction which this im- 
plies. If Carneades, as we have seen, despaired of 
any certainty to be derived from physical investiga- 
tions; if neither the senses nor the understanding 
furnished knowledge; if he compared logic to a 
polypus which devoured its own limbs; and if he 
fixed upon no good as the highest, did he, then, de- 
spair of philosophy ? Such a conclusion, though 
apparently favoured by his negative polemic and his 
appeal to the fact that philosophers were hopelessly 
divided and that nothing had been settled by the con- 
troversies of the schools, must nevertheless be re- 
jected. But if knowledge, in Hume's language, is re- 
solved into probability, what precisely is the function 
which philosophy can retain ? It remains as a formal 
science but not as a means of discovering truth. Its 

1 Cicero, Tusc. Disp., Ill, 59. 



352 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

task is to classify presentations and the general no- 
tions formed from them. The method of philosophy, 
then, is a method of testing and arranging concepts, 
a result which strikingly agrees with Herbart's defini- 
tion. 1 We cannot expect to reach to certainty; we 
can but register and compare concepts according to 
the standard of probability. It is easy to see that 
this, though a scientific theory, is somewhat sterile 
and barren of result. The Academics did not always 
see that the reasonings used to support an alleged 
fact are often false while the fact alleged is true. 
But it is their conspicuous merit that least of all the 
philosophers of the time they regarded speculation 
as a means to an end. 

1 Die Bearbeitung der Begriffe. Of course Herbart's conception is in 
content wholly different from that of Carneades. 



CHAPTER IX 

ECLECTICISM 

In the middle of the second century B. C. an im- 
partial observer and student of history, reflecting on 
the tendencies of the time so far as they affected 
philosophy, would have been most anxious to know 
how the struggle between dogmatism and scepticism, 
then at its height, would develop. He would seem- 
ingly have been justified in recalling the similar 
position in the fifth century when the progress of 
pre-Socratic speculation was arrested, and those cele- 
brated lecturers the Sophists succeeded in diverting 
public attention from philosophy, of which they de- 
spaired, to humanism; that is, to the study of litera- 
ture, rhetoric, and practical politics. If our observer 
leaned to dogmatism, he might be pardoned for re- 
membering with pride that in the hour when the 
Sophists carried all before them, Greece was on the 
eve of its greatest philosophical triumphs; that the 
reaction against scepticism spread victoriously from 
its humble beginning in Socrates to Plato's heights 
of idealism and Aristotle's encyclopaedia of the 
sciences. So now, he might have inferred, agnosti- 
cism, even when bolstered with probabilism, would 
fail in the long run to satisfy men, and he might have 
anticipated, not unreasonably, that a reaction would 
follow in the wake of the New Academy, perhaps 
even a reaction to idealism. For such a reaction 
the world had long to wait. The creative impulse 

353 



354 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

seemed exhausted. Instead of the rise of a new 
system, what actually followed was a period of un- 
certainty and readjustment, in which almost all ex- 
isting schools were tentatively and sensibly modified, 
and a gradual fusion and approximation of sharply 
opposed theories set in. In this, the period of eclec- 
ticism, the independence of every system was threat- 
ened ; in the effort to ward off renewed assaults the 
very foundations were sapped and shaken from 
within. The most powerful solvent was undoubtedly 
the negative criticism of Carneades. The vigour of 
his onslaught made him the terror of his contempo- 
raries. It was one thing to maintain the abstract 
thesis that knowledge is unattainable; he had es- 
sayed the harder task of proving by argument that it 
had not been attained. But there was another in- 
fluence at work. The very fact that controversies 
prolonged for generations, had brought the dogma- 
tists themselves no nearer to agreement must have 
led some of the disputants to doubt whether their 
principles expressed the whole truth in a complete 
and final form. Where there was room for such 
misgivings a tendency to modification of doctrine and 
mutual accommodation began to show itself in spite 
of the obstinacy with which each of the disputants 
clung in turn to his favourite tenets. The change 
was in the air, but it affected the different schools very 
unequally. The Epicureans never diverged from the 
principles of their founder. That the Peripatetics 
suffered considerably is clear from the treatise De 
Mundo, which, though it has come down to us 
among Aristotle's works, was certainly written after 
his death and contains a remarkable fusion of Stoi- 
cism with the principles of his philosophy. Evidence 
quite as startling is furnished by two short ethical 



ECLECTICISM 355 

treatises: De Virtutibus et Vitlis, attributed to Aris- 
totle, and De Affectibus, attributed to Andronicus of 
Rhodes, a leading Peripatetic, and by the summary 
of Peripatetic news or ethics furnished by Stobaeus. 
The rise of neo-Pythagoreanism, another testimony to 
the eclectic spirit, must be dismissed as more properly 
belonging to a later period. Our attention is de- 
manded by the changes introduced into the two other 
most important schools, the Stoics and the Academics. 
After the prosperous careers of Carneades and 
Clitomachus Plato's school met with vicissitudes. 
Its next head was Philo of Larissa, who came to Rome 
and taught there in the Mithridatic war, about 88 
B. C. Up till that time he had professed allegiance 
to the principles of Carneades, but later he published 
a book which provoked strong opposition in the 
school. He was charged with wilful misrepresenta- 
tion of the facts. 1 The precise nature of his innova- 
tions has been the subject of much discussion, but 
that he attempted to put a new complexion on the 
, sceptical teaching of Arcesilas and Carneades is all 
but certain. He may have argued — at least this 
seems the most plausible conjecture 2 — that the Aca- 
demic leaders, in refuting the Stoic criterion, did not 
express their own views, but merely adopted a justi- 
fiable, polemical expedient, and he may even have 
set up a contrast between the exoteric and the esoteric 
doctrines of the Academy, though his opponents 
asked in vain what the latter were. However this 
may be, the opinions with which Philo is credited 
on good authority show a considerable divergence 
from the uncompromising scepticism of Carneades. 

1 Cicero, Acad. Pr., II, 12 and 18. 

2 Cf. the edition of Cicero's Academica, by Prof. J. S. Reid, Introd., 
pp. 58 sqq. 



356 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Things, he contended, were in their own nature 
knowable, though not by the standard of knowledge 
which the Stoics proposed. 1 If he held such an opin- 
ion, it was natural that he should endeavour to in- 
terpret the teaching of his predecessors in conformity 
with it. We are not, then, surprised to find on unim- 
peachable authority 2 that Philo and Metrodorus of 
Stratonice affirmed that Carneades had been mis- 
understood by everybody. The point at issue was 
whether the probable opinions to which Carneades 
gave utterance were or were not to be regarded as 
assertions of a positive conviction. Clitomachus, of 
course, who was best qualified to speak, denied this, 
and the counter-statements of two dissentient dis- 
ciples is wholly inadequate to shake our belief in the 
genuineness of the master's scepticism, supported as 
it is by the unanimous testimony of his opponents 
the dogmatists. But there is no reason to doubt that 
the positive teaching which Philo tried to fasten on 
his master was held by himself; in other words, from ,', 
the admission of probability as a guide for action 
Philo had come to apply it dogmatically in the ]/ 
theoretical sphere, wilfully oblivious of the very 
clear distinction which Carneades laid down between 
the absolute and the relative in the matter of assent 
and suspension of judgment. If Philo had begun to 
compromise with the enemy, his pupil, Antiochus of 
Ascalon, the next head of the school, openly capitu- 
lated. For years he had maintained the old struggle 
against the Stoics, and refuted their claims to set up 
an infallible criterion. At last, worn out by con- 

1 Sextus Emp., Pyrrh. Hyp., I, 235; cf. Numenius, cited by Eusebius, 
Pr. Ev., XIV, 9, 1. 

2 Ind. Here. Acad. phil. (A list of the adherents of the Academy found 
at Herculaneum and edited by Biicheler, Greifswald, 1869.) Cf. Cicero, 
Acad. Pr., II, 78. Augustinus, Contr. Academicus, III, 41. 



ECLECTICISM 357 

troversy, he recanted his agnostic errors and declared 
knowledge not only to be possible, but possible 
through the very criterion which he had so long re- 
fused to recognise. 1 But his surrender on this all- 
important issue was only a typical instance of his 
complete change of front. His later opinions, thanks 
to Cicero, who knew him and heard him lecture, are 
as well known to us as those of any philosopher after 
Plato, and a strange medley they are. From his 
chair in the Academy he taught Stoic logic, Stoic 
physics, and an ethical theory which was only not 
orthodox Stoicism because it was fatally wanting in 
the unity, coherence, and consistency which even 
opponents admired in the Stoics. With a singular 
disregard of internal probability, Antiochus was not 
content with borrowing almost all his new-found 
dogmas from the Stoics, but coolly claimed them for 
his own rightful inheritance. With a strange per- 
version of the historical sense, he charged Zeno with 
having originally stolen the characteristic principles 
of Stoicism from the old Academy. To that term 
he gave a liberal interpretation. By an effort of the 
imagination he made the old Academy embrace the 
critics and opponents as well as the followers of 
Plato, all united in one harmonious school of doctrine. 
He claimed for it not only Speusippus, Xenocrates, 
Polemo, Crates, and Crantor, but also Aristotle and 
Theophrastus, and even Zeno himself, for was not 
he, too, like Arcesilas, a disciple of Polemo ? Th^t 
the old Academy and the Peripatetics were, in Cicero's 
words, 2 one single school, differing in their nomen- 

1 Cicero, Acad. Pr., II, 69; cf. Numenius, cited by Eusebius, Pr. Ev., 
XIV, 9, 2; Augustinus, Contr. Acad., II, 6, 15, III, 18, 41. 

2 Cicero, Acad. Post., I, 17, 18. This assumption runs through the whole 
exposition, Acad. Post., I, 19 to 46; see esp. 24 sqq., 30 sqq., 33, 35, 40, 



358 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

clature while they agreed in substance, was asserted 
by this singular authority with so much vehemence 
that he might have turned even wiser heads than 
Cicero's. Here, then, we have eclecticism with a 
vengeance. If we may judge by the procedure of 
Antiochus, its privilege is arbitrarily to fit together 
various parts of different systems into a more or less 
incongruous whole at the caprice of the individual 
eclectic. Poor as was the performance, it sufficed. 
The scepticism of the Academy died out in the first 
century B. C. Almost its last representative in litera- 
ture was Cicero, and Cicero, as we shall see, was him- 
self an eclectic. 

Though he made no independent contributions to 
philosophy, Cicero, by his writings, did much to 
render the subject familiar to his countrymen. He 
had good opportunities for becoming acquainted with 
all the schools; he had heard most of the leading men 
lecture, and his wide reading was directed by the 
ambition of adding a new department to Latin 
literature. His procedure in compiling his numerous 
treatises was very simple. As he ingenuously con- 
fesses, he did the work of a translator. 1 He would 
select some acknowledged authority of repute for the 
views he wished to expound, and reproduce the gist 
of the argument, putting it into the mouth of some 
Roman of eminence. The setting of the dialogue, 
a judicious sprinkling of historical illustrations, and 
the proems or introductions were all that was required 
to adapt Clitomachus or Antiochus, Panaetius or 
Posidonius to the needs of Roman readers. This 



46. The system expounded under Plato's name is simply the eclectic 
construction of Antiochus; see also De Fin., IV, 14-45, 56 sqq., 60 sqq. 

1 Epp. ad Atticum, XIII, 52, apographa sunt: minore labore fiunt : 
verba tantum adfero, quibus abundo. 



ECLECTICISM 359 

much Cicero could easily furnish himself, while his 
real gift for exposition, combined with his enthusiasm 
for his subject, enabled him to turn out in rapid 
succession a series of readable dialogues dealing with 
many of the most controverted topics of the day. 
A professed adherent of the New Academy, he valued 
highly the privilege of criticising all opinions without 
being committed unreservedly to the defence of any, 
a privilege which a barrister above all men would 
appreciate. When he comes to questions of law and 
morality, Cicero makes a singular use of his free- 
dom to hold whatever opinion seems probable. He 
wholly dissociates himself from the negative views of 
Carneades, with which he had no more sympathy 
than with the utilitarian ethics of Epicurus. 1 A 
violent reaction against both led him at first to accept 
the eclecticism of Antiochus, but gradually he ap- 
proximated more closely to the Stoics whose rigid 
consistency and moral idealism had a fascination for 
him as for other Romans in spite of the hard criticism 
which at other times he passed upon them. Hence 
in reviewing his opinions we have to distinguish the 
pupil of Carneades in the Academica, De Natura 
Deorum, De Divinatione, and De Fato, from the pupil 
of Antiochus in De Le gibus and De Finibus; and from 
the defender of Stoic Ethics in the Tusculan Dispu- 
tations and De Officus. We can never be sure, how- 
ever, whether any opinion advanced in Cicero's works 
is really his own, and he protests emphatically that he 
is not bound by previous utterances and that it is a 
mistake to fasten upon himself the inconsistencies of 
his different writings. 2 In this conspicuous example 
of a professed sceptic we see the havoc which the 

1 See, for instance, De Legibus., I, 39. 
3 Tusc. Disp., V, 33, 82. 



360 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

disintegrating spirit of eclecticism had wrought upon 
the symmetry and consistency of all systems of 
thought. More than a century afterward the same 
arbitrary acceptance of different philosophemes char- 
acterised the otherwise interesting contribution of the 
historian Plutarch of Chaeronea to the controversial 
literature of the schools. This eclectic also was, like 
Cicero, a professed Academic, but he differed from 
Cicero, not only in the range of positive doctrines 
that he embraced, but still more in the unsparing 
severity with which he directed his harsh and un- 
sympathetic criticism against Stoics and Epicureans 
alike. 1 

In the history of Stoicism it is usual to distinguish 
three periods. In the first the doctrine was elabo- 
rated. The two centuries following upon the death 
of Chrysippus form the middle period, a period of 
transition, during which the older doctrines were 
modified, simplified, and occasionally relaxed in an 
eclectic spirit. To the last of the three periods be- 
long the Roman Stoics of the Empire, such as Seneca, 
Musonius, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. With 
the death of Chrysippus the energy of the school re- 
laxed. His immediate successors, Zeno of Tarsus, 
Diogenes of Seleucia (often called the Babylonian), 
Antipater of Tarsus, were men of no originality 
though not without ability. On the two last named 
fell the brunt of the conflict with Carneades. When 
Stoicism emerged from this conflict, the physical 
basis of the system remained unchanged but was 
neglected. Problems of interest bearing upon psy- 
chology and natural theology continued to be dis- 

1 Against the Stoics in De Communibus Notitiis and De Stoicorum 
Repugnantiis, against Epicurus in Adversus Coloten and Non posse 
suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum. 



ECLECTICISM 361 

cussed. But all original research, all lively interest 
in that department ceased. We hear that Diogenes 
expressed doubts as to the cycles of the world's 
existence and that his disciple Boethus renounced 
the belief in the universal conflagration. His doc- 
trine of a deity not immanent in but distinct from the 
inanimate universe, which he superintends from with- 
out, was a compromise between Stoic and Peripatetic 
teaching. 

In the department of ethics the Stoic teachers were 
occupied in elaborating their conception of the good, 
and in particular they endeavoured to bridge the 
gulf which separated the objects of natural and in- 
stinctive desire from the rational end of human action. 
We meet with several glosses or interpretations of the 
formula of Chrysippus which were current at this 
time and it is impossible to mistake the controversial 
aim of such alterations. Thus Antipater distin- 
guished between the mere attainment of primary 
natural ends and the activity directed to their attain- 
ment, accepting Carneades' identification of this 
activity with virtue. But earlier still, Diogenes had 
defined the end thus: "To calculate rightly in the 
selection and rejection of things according to nature." 
Archedemus, a contemporary of Diogenes, put this 
in plainer terms still. "The end," he said, "is to live 
in the performance of all fitting actions," i. e., of all 
relative duties (Kathekonta). Now it is highly im- 
probable that the earlier Stoics would have sanctioned 
such interpretations of their definitions. The mere 
performance of relative or imperfect duties, they 
would have said, is something neither good nor evil; 
the essential constituent of human good is ignored. 
And this, we know, is the criticism which in a later 
age was actually passed by Posidonius. His words 



362 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

are: "This is not the end, but only its necessary 
concomitant; such a mode of expression may be use- 
ful for the refutation of objections put forward by the 
Sophists" — more precisely, by Carneades — "but it 
contains nothing of morality or well-being." l He saw 
clearly that the concessions extorted by the assaults 
of the adversary went perilously near to sacrificing 
the essential dogmas of Stoic ethics. The rigour and 
consistency of the older system were sensibly modi- 
fied by the increased importance and fuller treatment 
which from this time onward fell to the lot of external 
duties. 

To this result another important factor contributed. 
The picture of the impeccable sage had embodied 
that enthusiasm for righteousness which breathes 
with Semitic earnestness through all the teaching 
of the earlier Stoics. But the sage had become 
an ideal. Men in earnest about right living felt 
the need of practical precepts, of rules for the daily 
conduct of life. They could not always imitate the 
sage, but they could at least learn to appreciate the 
importance of the "external" duties required of all 
men, wise or unwise. The central figure in this 
middle period of Stoicism was a remarkable man. 
Born at Rhodes about 185 B. C. Panaetius was a 
citizen of the most flourishing of Greek cities, and 
almost the only one which still retained vigour and 
freedom. Yet he lived for years in the house of 
Scipio Africanus the younger, at Rome, accompanied 
him on embassies and campaigns, and was perhaps 
the first Greek who in a private capacity had any in- 
sight into the working of the Roman state or the 
character of its citizens. Later in life, as head of the 
Stoic school at Athens, he achieved a reputation 

1 Galen, De Plac. Hipp, el Plat., p. 470, Kuhn. 



ECLECTICISM 363 

second only to that of Chrysippus. He is the earliest 
Stoic author from whom we have, even indirectly, 
any considerable piece of work, as Books I and II of 
the De Officiis are a rechauffe, in Cicero's fashion, of 
Panaetius "Upon External Duty." 

The introduction of Stoicism at Rome was the 
most momentous of the many changes that it saw. 
After the first sharp collision with the jealousy of the 
national authorities, it found a ready acceptance and 
made rapid progress among the noblest families. In 
Greece its insensibility to art and the cultivation of 
life was a fatal defect; not so with shrewd men of the 
world desirous of qualifying as advocates or jurists. 
It supplied them with an incentive to scientific re- 
search in archaeology and grammar; it penetrated 
jurisprudence until the belief in the ultimate identity 
of the Jus Gentium with the law of nature modified 
the praetor's edicts for centuries. Even to the Roman 
state religion, with its narrow conceptions and burden- 
some rites, it became in some sort a support. Scae- 
vola, following Panaetius, explained that the prudence 
of statesmen had established this public institution 
in the service of order midway between the errors of 
popular superstition and the barren truths of en- 
lightened philosophy. Soon the influence of the 
pupils reacted upon the doctrines taught. For ab- 
stract discussions the ordinary Roman cared little or 
nothing. He was naturally an eclectic, for, indif- 
ferent to the scientific basis or logical development 
of doctrines, he selected from various writers and 
from different schools what he found most service- 
able. All had to be simplified and disengaged from 
technical subtleties. To attract his Roman pupils 
Panaetius would naturally choose simple topics sus- 
ceptible of rhetorical treatment or of application to 



364 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

individual details. He was the representative, not 
merely of Stoicism, but of Greece and Greek liter- 
ature, and would feel pride in introducing its greatest 
masterpieces. He had a particular admiration for 
the writings of Plato. The classic style, the exquisite 
purity of the language, the flights of imagination ap- 
pealed to him no less strongly than the philosophy. 
He marks a reaction of the genuine Hellenic spirit 
against the narrow austerity of the first Stoics. Zeno 
and Chrysippus had introduced a repellent technical 
terminology; their writings lacked every grace of 
style. With Panaetius the Stoic became eloquent; 
he did his best to improve the uncouth words in 
vogue, even at some slight cost of accuracy. 

To Roman society, then, Panaetius came as the 
missionary of Hellenic culture. The philosophy he 
inculcated was Stoicism, it is true, but a broad- 
minded and liberal Stoicism, tolerant and concilia- 
tory. He himself diverged from orthodoxy on several 
important points. Like Boethus, he abandoned the 
doctrine of a periodic conflagration of the universe. 
This involved the further consequence that he re- 
nounced the limited immortality hitherto accepted in 
the school, for, according to the first founders, the 
souls of the wise, and of the wise alone, retained a 
separate existence until the end of each world-cycle 
and the consummation of all things in the general 
conflagration. He rejected the old Stoic doctrine of 
divination. In these deviations it is easy to trace the 
influence of Carneades. But the eclectic tendencies 
of the time are more significantly betrayed by his 
innovations in ethics, which were delicately adjusted 
to the susceptibilities of men of the world. It may 
be too much to say that he introduced and expounded 
a twofold standard of morality. But he certainly 



ECLECTICISM 365 

divided virtues into two classes, theoretical and prac- 
tical; that is to say, he recognised in Prudence an in- 
tellectual faculty co-ordinate with the three cardinal 
virtues, Justice, Courage, and Temperance, which 
were practical, and, without altogether abandoning 
the aspiration after perfect wisdom and virtue, he 
never forgot that his business was with those who 
had set out on the road to virtue and were a long way 
removed from the ideal sage. This in itself impairs 
the rigid consistency of an ethical system which starts 
from the proposition that all virtue is one and is es- 
sentially knowledge. In the first book of his cele- 
brated treatise on appropriate action or external duty 
Panaetius dealt with moral good; in the second book 
with expediency or utility. His translator, Cicero, 
complains with justice that he omitted to treat the 
cases in which a conflict of motives is conceivable, 
where one line of conduct is dictated on grounds of 
morality and a different line of conduct suggested by 
considerations of expediency. This omission Cicero 
himself endeavours to the best of his ability to supply 
in his own third book, De Offlciis. Here even more 
than in the other parts of the treatise the reader can- 
not fail to note that relaxation of the moral standard 
which seems inevitable when problems of every-day 
life are discussed in a spirit of casuistry. A few ex- 
amples will suffice. It is disputed whether the vendor 
is bound to disclose defects in an article submitted for 
sale; whether in a storm at sea the owner should 
make jettison of worthless slaves or of valuable cargo. 
No dialectical quibbles can blind us to the fact that 
in these problems we are concerned with a second- 
rate morality, a conventional code which has the 
public opinion of the day for its ultimate sanction. 
Its embodiment is the honest man, the respectable 



366 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

citizen, vir bonus, whose judgment Panaetius and 
Cicero endeavour to enlighten as best they can. 

Passing over other disciples of Panaetius, of whom 
Hecato is the most conspicuous, we come to Posi- 
donius (130-46 B. C), who carried on among the 
Romans of the next generation the work his master 
had begun. By birth a Syrian of Apamea, he spent 
many years in travel and scientific researches in 
Spain and Gaul, Africa and Sicily, Liguria and the 
regions to the east of the Adriatic. When he settled 
as a teacher at Rhodes his fame attracted numerous 
scholars. He became known to many eminent Ro- 
mans, among them Marius, Rutilius, Pompey, and 
Cicero. He was, without doubt, the most learned 
man of his age. He was the last Stoic who took an 
interest in physics and busied himself with the positive 
sciences, as his contributions to geography, natural 
history, mathematics, and astronomy sufficiently at- 
test. He sought to determine the distance and mag- 
nitude of the sun, to calculate the diameter of the 
earth and the influence of the moon on the tides. 
Judged from the modern stand-point, he may appear 
uncritical or even credulous, but at the time his spirit 
of fearless inquiry provoked the criticism of his con- 
temporary Strabo, who deemed it altogether alien to 
the Stoic school, 1 and almost Peripatetic. Add to this 
that he was a competent historian who wrote a nar- 
rative of his own times from the fall of Corinth to the 
Mithridatic war, in fifty-two books. This, like his 
numerous other writings, proved a mine of informa- 
tion to subsequent writers. The wavering and want 
of finality characteristic of eclecticism is well seen 
when we compare his philosophical tenets with those 
of Panaetius. The master and the pupil alike took 

1 Strabo, II, 3, p. 104. 



ECLECTICISM 367 

the liberty of diverging from Stoic orthodoxy, but in 
different directions. Posidonius fell back upon the 
old belief in divination, and the series of world-cycles, 
each ending in a general conflagration. But in re- 
turn he broke more completely than any one before 
him with the psychology of his school. Finding it 
impossible to explain the emotions as judgments or 
the effects of judgment, in short, as morbid states of 
the one rational soul, he gave up the unity of the soul. 
To account for the emotions he postulated, like Plato, 
an irrational principle, including a concupiscent and 
a spirited element, although he subordinated all three 
as faculties to the one substance of the soul lodged in 
the heart. This heterodox conclusion he did not 
scruple to avow in the definition which he gave of the 
end of action, namely, "to live in contemplation of 
the reality and order of the universe, promoting it to 
the best of our power, and never led astray by the 
irrational part of the soul." Strange language this, 
in the mouth of a Stoic. He also maintained the 
immortality and very probably the pre-existence of 
the rational soul, and we learn without surprise that 
his admiration for Plato led him to write a com- 
mentary on the Timceus. 

Other evidence might be adduced, but from what 
has been said it is clear that Panaetius and Posidonius, 
the two most eminent Stoics of the middle period, 
handled the traditional doctrines with remarkable 
freedom. If their innovations had, in the long run, 
little permanent effect it was because in the last 
period of Stoicism men ceased to take an interest in 
such questions. Their whole attitude had become 
changed. Their attention was concentrated upon 
ethics, and even in this department they regarded the 
scientific basis, the interlacing network of theories, 



368 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

as matter of curiosity rather than of edification. 
Epictetus and even Seneca, for the most part, pro- 
fessed a general allegiance to the first founders. 
Untroubled by critical doubts, they acquiesced in the 
doctrines of Zeno and Aristo, Cleanthes and Chrysip- 
pus. When Seneca, for example, does touch upon 
the theoretical side of Stoicism, it is in the hope of 
finding some novelty to interest his readers and al- 
most in the spirit of antiquarian research. To be 
over-curious on speculative questions is generally re- 
garded as reprehensible, as diverting the attention of 
the individual from the all-important task of his own 
moral improvement. The Roman Stoic of imperial 
times addressed his appeal to the reason and con- 
science of men, but it was no part of his ambition to 
become a speculative thinker himself or to make 
thinkers of others. Indifference to exact scientific 
theory and willingness to accept good moral teaching 
from any quarter, from Plato and Epicurus as readily 
as from Chrysippus, is not peculiar to Seneca; it is 
the common characteristic of all the later Stoics. 
Philosophy in their view is the healer to whom men 
come from a sense of their weakness and disease, 
whose business is "with the sick, not with the whole." 
The wisdom by which she heals is not a matter of long 
dissertations or dialectical subtleties, but rather a 
continual meditation and self-discipline. To endure 
and to renounce, to bear and to forbear, is the watch- 
word of Epictetus. The way to virtue, says Seneca, 
is not hard to find, but the life of one who treads it is a 
continual struggle, a campaign in which there is no 
repose. By constant effort alone can we emerge 
victorious from the conflict and build up a fixed habit 
and rational character. 

An apology is due to the reader for this hasty and 



ECLECTICISM 369 

inadequate glimpse at a great philosophical system 
in the last stages of its development. It long con- 
tinued to exert a profound influence upon adherents 
who had become professedly indifferent to its theories, 
if for no other reason because this system alone of- 
fered satisfaction to the deepest longings of earnest 
and strenuous natures. The Roman empire en- 
joyed external prosperity; the accumulation of ma- 
terial wealth, the growth of luxury and frivolity, went 
on unabated. The most eminent Stoics were usually 
found in the ranks of the opposition, carrying on 
against the Cassars the hopeless struggle to which as a 
party and a sect they had been committed by Cato of 
Utica. But whether in opposition like Thrasea or in 
office like Seneca, the principles of a Stoic brought 
him sooner or later into collision with the government, 
and under the early empire, at any rate, the victims of 
tyranny included not a few martyrs to philosophy. 
In this respect Stoicism stands apart from other an- 
cient schools; if we except the occasional outbursts 
of local fanaticism against the "godless" Epicure- 
ans, there was no other sect before the rise of Christi- 
anity of sufficient importance to be persecuted. 

It has been shown that the unsettling ferment of 
eclecticism began among contending schools at Athens, 
was fostered by the powerful polemic of Carneades, 
and gained a remarkable impetus when philosophi- 
cal issues were presented to the phlegmatic, matter-of- 
fact Roman temper. As the movement progressed, 
the Academy ceased to be sceptical, the Peripatetics 
made compromising concessions; the Stoics of the 
middle period suffered doubts and scruples to lead 
them now in this direction, now in that in the path 
of innovating reform, while in their successors eclectic 
tendencies were just as completely, if unconsciously, 



370 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

manifested by that concentration upon practical 
ethics which involved the almost total neglect of all 
other parts of the system. To this general disintegra- 
tion of dogmatism the rise of the later Sceptics gave a 
finishing, satirical touch. 



CHAPTER X 

^NESIDEMUS AND THE REVIVAL OF 
PYRRHONISM 

The connection between medicine and philosophy, 
it is now generally recognised, was much closer in 
ancient than in modern times. The long series of 
medical writers, from Hippocrates to Galen, abound 
in allusions to the problems of science in general and 
to the opinions of contemporary thinkers. For some 
two centuries before Galen's advent the condition 
of medicine was by no means satisfactory. Great 
discoveries had been made, but their meaning was 
not fully apprehended. Amid the controversies of 
rival schools there was nowhere an established or 
accepted authority which commanded respect, no 
one system entitled to universal recognition. The 
practitioner might well feel justified in holding, as a 
matter of experience, that in his own department, at 
any rate, there was no such thing as certainty. It is 
not surprising that such a conviction should bias his 
general outlook on the world. At all events it is a 
significant fact that many of the later Sceptics be- 
longed to the medical profession and in particular to 
the empirical school; the coincidence between oppo- 
sition to dogmatism in medicine and in philosophy 
can hardly be fortuitous. By a fortunate accident 
the writings of one eminent physician and sceptic, 
Sextus Empiricus, have been preserved. To his zeal 
and industry we are indebted for a very complete 

371 



372 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

summary of the sceptical position as he understood 
it, and as he drew freely on his predecessors we are 
introduced to the arguments and opinions of thinkers 
more eminent than himself, who but for his work 
would be little more than names to us. Sextus was 
in his day the head of the sceptical school, if school it 
can be called, which he denied. He lived about 
200 A. D., and spent at least part of his life at Rome. 
As a physician he belonged, in spite of his name, to 
the school of medicine opposed to the Empirics and 
known as the Methodics. He wrote Pyrrhonean 
Outlines (Hypotyposeis), in three books; Against 
the Dogmatists, in five books, which deal succes- 
sively with Logic, Physics, and Ethics, and lastly six 
books in which he combated the special sciences of 
Grammar and Rhetoric, Geometry and Arithmetic, 
Astronomy and Music. The two last are properly 
distinct treatises; they are usually cited, however, as 
parts of a single treatise, Adversus Mathematicos, 
in eleven books. These writings, of which the 
Pyrrhonean Outlines are at once the earliest and the 
best, are a storehouse of information respecting the 
latest phase of sceptical teaching. Not only are 
the position and aims of Pyrrhonism clearly de- 
fined, but the arguments by which it was supported 
are given in full with constant reference to the counter- 
arguments of the different dogmatic schools. When 
Sextus has set forth his own position and guarded 
it from attack on every side, he, of course, assumes 
the offensive. The bulk of his writings then becomes 
polemical, and almost every system of philosophy is in 
turn examined and refuted to his own satisfaction. 
As he proceeds with his task certain features in his 
method arrest our attention. An enormous advance 
has been made in the precise formulation and syste- 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 373 

matisation of the argument. Though dissociating 
himself from the Academics, Sextus has taken good 
care to incorporate whatever he could find in Car- 
neades and Clitomachus available for his own pur- 
pose, notably the rejection of formal logic, including 
demonstration, syllogism, induction, definition, di- 
vision, and every other logical instrument. 1 

The impression he makes is that of a diligent and 
clearsighted compiler with not much originality. For 
an historian of philosophy his equipment was certainly 
defective. The only dogmatic system he was thor- 
oughly versed in was that of the Stoics. He was but 
imperfectly acquainted with Plato; his knowledge of 
Aristotle is so slight that it was probably gained at 
second hand; even Epicurus he had studied none too 
well. The amount of material he has amassed is not 
always well arranged, and he is sometimes lacking 
in internal coherence. Still, he is conspicuous for 
clearness and good sense. His acknowledgments to 
his predecessors are frequent. Accordingly it is to 
these predecessors that we must direct our attention. 
Sextus makes it abundantly evident to whom the 
merit of the teaching he advocates and expounds is 
really due. Besides scepticism in this elaborate and 
comprehensive form had been inculcated long before 
his time. Diogenes Laertius has preserved a list of 
sceptical teachers, beginning with Pyrrho and ending 
with Saturninus the pupil of Sextus, who is made the 
fourteenth in the succession. 2 But he impartially 
mentions the statement of Menodotus, the eleventh 

1 Sextus Emp., Pyrrh. Hyp., II, 134-259. 

2 Diog., Laert., IX, 115, 116. The names are (1) Pyrrho, (2) Timon, 
(3) Euphranor, (4) Eubulus of Alexandria, (5) Ptolemasus of Cyrene, 
(6) Heraclides, (7) ^Enesidemus, (8) Zeuxippus, (9) Zeuxis, (10) An- 
tiochus of Laodicea, (11) Menodotus, (12) Herodotus of Tarsus, (13) 
Sextus Empiricus, (14) Saturninus. 



374 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

on the list, to the effect that Pyrrho's school died out 
after Timon, who left no disciples. On this point 
there can be no reasonable doubt that Menodotus was 
right. When we examine the list we may, with per- 
fect confidence, accept the last eight links of the 
chain, from iEnesidemus the seventh to Saturninus 
the fourteenth. Undoubtedly these were all Pyrrho- 
nists or later Sceptics standing to each other in the 
relation of master to pupil. When we go further 
back there is room for caution. Quite apart from 
the plain statement of Menodotus, there are chrono- 
logical difficulties in continuing the chain, as the list 
of Diogenes does, backward to Timon. The names 
are too few to bridge over two centuries. On the 
other hand a motive for the extension of the list is 
easily suggested, namely, the desire to represent the 
later Sceptics as affiliated by unbroken tradition to 
the master whom they venerated and whose name 
they chose to revive. 

We assume, then, the genuineness of the list from 
iEnesidemus onward to Sextus and Saturninus, and, 
in common with all recent historians of philosophy, 
it is to iEnesidemus that we attribute the resuscita- 
tion of Pyrrhonism in the permanent form which it 
maintained for at least two centuries. 1 Of the per- 
sonal history of this remarkable man little is known; 
even his birthplace is variously given as Cnossus in 
Crete and iEgae in Achaea. A list of his works and 
a sketch of their contents is preserved by Photius. 2 
There is besides a passing mention of him by Aris- 



1 Eusebius, Pr. Ev., XIV, 18, 22, citing Aristocles, Bk. VIII., De Phil- 
osophies, states this explicitly. But Diog. Laert, IX, 115, cites Meno- 
dotus to the effect that the revival of Pyrrhonism began somewhat earlier 
with Ptolemseus, the fifth on the list given in the last note. 

2 Bibliotheca (Myr. Cod., 212), p. 169b, 18 sqq. (Bekker) . 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 375 

tocles. 1 For the rest we depend upon the copious 
references of Sextus, who was more indebted to him 
than to any of his predecessors. That he taught at 
Alexandria and originally belonged to the Academy 
seems certain. His teacher Heraclides probably be- 
longed to the same section of the Academy as Cicero, 
and, like him, resented the capitulation of Antiochus 
to the Stoics. iEnesidemus himself went further. 
He attributed this fatal declension to inherent weak- 
ness in the position of the sceptical Academy through- 
out, from Arcesilas and Carneades to Clitomachus 
and Philo of Larissa. They had, he maintained, all 
along been dogmatists in disguise. They had an- 
nounced their negative conclusions too confidently, 
and denied the possibility of knowledge without re- 
serve. This statement, we may remark in passing, 
though often repeated by the later Sceptics, would 
have been flatly contradicted by the Academics them- 
selves, as it is by Cicero. It was necessary, then, to 
make a fresh start and go back to Pyrrho. Accord- 
ingly, ^nesidemus wrote a treatise in eight books 
and called it Pyrrhonean Discourses. In the first 
book he sketched the principles of Pyrrhonean as 
distinct from Academic scepticism, and his reasons 
for dissenting from the latter, which are essentially 
the same as those given by Sextus. The remaining 
books of this treatise were chiefly polemical, and in 
them he subjected the procedure of all the schools, 
especially the Stoic, to thorough-going criticism in 
the three departments of logic, physics, and ethics. 
Here again his example is faithfully followed by 
Sextus. The work was dedicated to Lucius iElius 
Tubero, a prominent Roman statesman, and this 
fact furnishes the best clue to its date. It has re- 

1 Eusebius, Pr. Ev., XIV, 18, 3, 8 sqq., 22. 



376 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

cently been proved that Philo of Alexandria was 
acquainted with and made use of the treatise. It is 
therefore not impossible that the Tubero in question 
was the well-known statesman who was Cicero's 
friend and contemporary. Even if, as has some- 
times been assumed, though quite unnecessarily, he 
was a different individual belonging to the same 
family and bearing the same name, he cannot have 
lived many decades later. The silence of Cicero, 
both as to the revival of Pyrrhonism and the work 
dedicated to Tubero, nay, the very existence of its 
author, would be most naturally explained if the work 
itself was not written or at any rate not published 
until after Cicero's death, B. C. 43. In another work, 
his Outline Introductory to Pyrrhonism, iEneside- 
mus undertook to arrange the whole material at the 
disposal of the Sceptic in his contention against the 
dogmatic position under ten heads or tropes. 1 The 
word trope properly denotes procedure; the ten 
tropes were intended to contain the means of refuting 
dogmatism in all possible forms, and to provide direc- 
tions for stating every line of available argument which 
could lead to negative conclusions and paralyse assent. 
The first trope starts with differences in the con- 
stitution of different animals and in their modes 
of perception. Some animals have one sense highly 
developed, some another. In the sense of smell many 
are superior to man. The second trope applies this 
line of argument to the individual differences be- 

1 Sextus Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp., I, 35-164; Diog. Laert., IX, 79-88. The 
ten tropes are expressly attributed to ^Enesidemus by Sextus Emp., Adv. 
Math., VIII, 345; Diog. Laert., IX, 78, 87; Aristocles, cited in Eusebius, 
Pr. Ev., XIV, 18, 11. The latter, if the text is correct, speaks of nine, 
not ten, tropes; cf. Philo of Alexandria, De ebriet., pp. 383-388, Mang., 
also Von Arnim, Philo und Mnesidem, Quellenstudien zu Philo von 
Alexandria (Berlin, 1888), pp. 53-100, esp. pp. 56 sqg. 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 377 

tween man and man. For example, Demophon, the 
steward of Alexander, is said to have felt warm in the 
shade and to have shivered in the sun; Andron the 
Argive was scarcely sensible of thirst; and there was 
no lack of other well-known instances of abnormal 
development to appeal to. The third proceeds from 
the variety in the constitution of the sense-organs, 
showing that the same object appears under different 
aspects according to the senses to which it is pre- 
sented. An apple is yellow to the sight, sweet to the 
taste, fragrant to the smell; had we more senses, the 
Sceptic argues, we might discover other qualities. 
The fourth proceeds from the variability of our physi- 
cal state and mental mood and the effect of such con- 
ditions as sleep, waking, joy, grief, hunger, thirst, etc. 
When the state of the percipient is so variable, how 
are we to decide which is the proper state for the per- 
ception of external things ? He who offers a standard 
or criterion must be prepared to prove its validity, 
and this will be found to be impossible. If so, it is 
impossible to form any judgment on external things. 
The fifth 1 adduces the diversities of appearance due 
to the position and distance of objects. Thus the 
dove's neck exhibits kaleidoscopic colours in the sun's 
light, square towers in the distance appear round, 
straight sticks in the water bent. The sixth pro- 
ceeds from the mode and mechanism of sense-percep- 
tion. Thus visible objects are not seen directly, but 
always through a medium, whether air, water, vapour 
or fog. The instrument, the eye, is liable to water 
and to be covered by films. So, too, with the ear, the 

1 In Diog. Laert., IX, 85, this trope appears as the seventh. Similarly 
what is given in the text as the seventh is in Diogenes made the eighth ; 
the eighth of the text is in Diogenes the tenth, and the tenth of the text is 
in Diogenes the fifth. 



378 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

nose, the tongue, the skin; all the instruments of 
sense are subject to alterations, which form fresh 
barriers between us and knowledge of the external 
object as it is. The seventh proceeds from variation 
in quantity and the modes in which objects are pre- 
sented, as temperature, colour, motion. For in- 
stance, while the scrapings of goats' horn appear 
white, the horn itself appears black, but silver filings 
appear black while a mass of silver looks white. 
The eighth proceeds more generally from the rela- 
tivity of all phenomena. All external things are 
relative, not only to the perceiving subject, but also 
to one another. Thus the same man is in one rela- 
tion son, in another father, in another brother. The 
ninth proceeds from the strength of association, 
pointing out that impressions familiar to us cause no 
surprise, while what is novel and strange for that very 
reason excites wonder. The tenth proceeds in a 
similar manner from the diversity in manners and 
customs, law and religion, beliefs and opinions in 
general among different nations, pointing out, e. g., 
how widely the standard of right and wrong has dif- 
fered in different ages and countries. It has been 
well observed that these ten tropes scarcely merit the 
reputation they acquired in antiquity. It is difficult 
to detect any order in their arrangement or thread of 
connection between them. Sextus dilates upon them 
and loads them with illustrations. In his view the 
first four relate to the judging subject, the seventh 
and eighth to the object judged, the remainder to 
both subject and object. But the fact is, they all 
enunciate more or less indirectly the relativity of 
human knowledge. 1 They do not contain anything 

1 Cf. Lotze, Logic, Bk. III. c. i., § 310. "The ten tropes, or logical 
grounds of doubt, all come to this, that sensations by themselves cannot 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 379 

that had not been at least as well said before, either by 
the sophists or the New Academy, and they do not 
atone for their lack of novelty by any precision of 
scientific arrangement. As we have seen, the order in 
which they are enumerated by Sextus differs from that 
of Diogenes Laertius. In many of the later heads we 
find practically repeated the substance of the former. 
The inference is obvious that the table was drawn up 
quite empirically to satisfy no other requirements 
than the convenience of polemical controversy. 

Subsequently an attempt was made to reduce the 
number of the tropes or rather to make a new list. 
Five sceptical tropes attributed to Agrippa 1 are as 
follows: The first is based on the discrepancy of 
human opinions, the second on the fact that every 
proof itself requires to be proved which implies a 
regressus ad infinitum, the third on the relativity of 
our knowledge which varies according to the con- 
stitution of the percipient and the circumstances in 
which he perceives, the fourth is really a completion 
of the second and forbids the assumption of unproven 
propositions as the premisses of an argument. The 
fifth seeks to show that reasoning essentially involves 
a vicious circle inasmuch as the principle adduced in 
proof requires itself to be supported by that which 
it is called in to prove. The first and third of these 
tropes cover the same ground as the more famous ten, 
which consist in the main of arguments derived from 
the fallibility of the senses; the remaining three are 
new and attack the possibility of demonstration. Un- 
less the premisses of demonstration are assumed with- 

discover to us what is the nature of the object which excites them." For 
Lotze's examination of the tropes and of the sceptical position in general 
see lb. §§ 310-312 (II, 193-199. English translation). 

1 Sextus Emp., Pyrrh. Hyp., I, 164-178; Diog. Laert, IX, 88 sqq. 



380 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

out proof, the dogmatist will find himself committed 
either to an infinite regress or to a vicious circle. A 
further attempt at simplification was made by re- 
ducing the tropes to two only: * (i) Nothing is self- 
evident, for if things were certain of themselves men 
would not differ about them; (2) nor can anything 
be made certain by proof, because we must either 
arrive in the process at something self-evident or we 
must involve ourselves in an endless regress. 

In the ten tropes the Sceptic confines himself to 
the well-worn story of the contradiction revealed by 
sensible phenomena. Agrippa's list of five tropes 
presents in addition the difficulties inherent in all 
attempts at logical demonstration. Here, no doubt, 
the influence of the sceptical Academy can be traced. 
But it is not on the tropes with which we have been 
dealing hitherto that the claims of iEnesidemus to a 
place among speculative inquirers should be based. 
His reputation for originality is due rather to a series 
of arguments concerned with truth, with causality 
and with signs, all of which, as they were understood 
by the dogmatists, he seeks to overthrow. We pass 
then, under the guidance of Sextus, 2 to the first of 
these, the argumentation against truth. iEneside- 
mus maintains that there is no such thing as truth, 
and skilfully adapts to his purpose the current dis- 
tinction between objects of sense and objects of 
thought, between things sensible and things intel- 
ligible. 

If truth exists it is one or other of these: it is 
either something sensible or something intelligible, 
or it is at once both sensible and intelligible or it is 
neither sensible nor intelligible. Now every one of 

1 Sextus Emp., Pyrrh. Hyp., I, 178-180. 

2 Adv. Math., VIII, 40-48; cf. Pyrrh Hyp, II, 80-97. 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 381 

these alternatives is impossible. Truth is not sen- 
sible, for sensible things are either generic or specific. 
Things generic are the resemblances common to 
several individuals, like man and horse, found in 
every man and in every horse. Things specific are 
the qualities peculiar to this or that individual, to 
Dion or Theon. If, then, truth is a sensible thing it 
must be either generic or specific; now it is neither 
generic nor specific. Furthermore, that which is vis- 
ible can be perceived by sight, that which is resonant 
by hearing; in general, whatever is sensible can be 
similarly perceived by the aid of some one sense, for 
sensation, in and for itself, is devoid of reason, while 
truth cannot be perceived without reason. Truth, 
then, is not a sensible thing. Nor, again, is it intel- 
ligible, for then no sensible thing would be true, 
which is absurd. Further, it would then be either 
intelligible for all at once or for some individuals 
alone. But it is impossible that it should be known 
by all simultaneously, nor is it known by some partic- 
ular individual, for this is improbable and is, in fact, 
the point at issue. 

Lastly, truth is not at once both sensible and intel- 
ligible. For if so, we shall have to say either that 
everything sensible and everything intelligible is true 
or else that not every sensible thing, but certain sen- 
sible things, not everything intelligible, but certain in- 
telligible things, are true. Now it cannot be said that 
everything sensible and everything intelligible is true, 
for sensible things are in contradiction with sensible 
things and intelligible things with intelligible things 
and reciprocally sensible things are in contradiction 
with intelligible things and intelligibles with sensibles. 
And it will be necessary, if all is true, that the same 
thing both is and is not, is true and false at the same 



/ 



382 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

time. Nor can it be that some of the sensible things 
are true or some of the intelligible things, for that is 
precisely the point at issue. Besides, it is logical to 
say that all sensible things are either true or false, for 
qua sensible they are all similar; one is not more sen- 
sible, the other less so. And so, too, with things in- 
telligible; they are all equally intelligible. Yet it is 
absurd to say that every sensible thing or every in- 
telligible thing is true. If, then, this reasoning holds, 
truth does not exist. 

This reasoning implies that truth and sensible 
things and intelligible things — in other words, the 
qualities of being true, of being sensible, and of being 
intelligible are severally realities. All three are re- 
garded as positive and intrinsic properties possessed 
by the objects that are called true or sensible or in- 
telligible. Common speech and even the language of 
philosophers lends support to such a view. The 
Stoics actually defined truth as a corporeal thing, a 
body. But upon reflection it will be seen that a thing 
does not contain in itself the property of being true. 
Two terms are necessary, the thing which exists and the 
thought to which it is presented. Aristotle had long 
ago made this perfectly plain. 1 "Falsity and truth" 
he says "are not in things, but in thought; it is not 
as if the good were true and the bad were in itself 
false. The cause, then, of that which is in the sense 
of being true or false is an affection of thought; it is 
related to the remaining genus of being and does not 
indicate any separate class of being. That which is 
in the sense of being true or is not in the sense of being 
false depends on combination and separation. The 
combination and the separation are in thought and 
not in the things, and that which is in this sense is 

1 Metaph. E., IV, 1027, b. 18-33. 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 383 

a different sort of 'being' from the things that are 
in the full sense. The true judgment affirms where 
the subject and predicate really are combined and 
denies where they are separated, while the false 
judgment predicates the contradictory of this. We 
think things together and apart in the sense that there 
is no succession in the thought but they become a 
unity." He went further, affirming that "in regard 
to simple concepts and essences, falsity and truth do 
not exist, even in thought." It is not surprising, then, 
that after conceiving as a thing in itself what can only 
be conceived as a relation, the sceptic should end by 
disproving its existence. It is quite certain that 
truth does not exist if we mean a reality independent 
of all thought. And the same thing may be said of 
what is sensible and what is intelligible, for in these 
terms, too, relations are implied. "But," the Sceptic 
may reply, "whether a relation or a thing in itself is 
meant makes little difference, provided you grant 
that where the relation expressed by the term sensible 
is found there is also found the relation expressed by 
the term truth. And this you do grant, if you say 
that what is true is sensible, as you must do unless 
you maintain that what is true is intelligible, and then 
the same question will arise under a slightly different 
form." Here we discern a second ambiguity. The 
Sceptic takes in an absolute sense identities which 
are only admitted in a partial or relative sense. We 
admit without misgiving that what is true is either 
sensible or intelligible. But what do we mean ? 
Simply that there are true things 1 which are either 
sensible or intelligible. These two qualities, true and 
sensible or true and intelligible can coexist in the 

1 The content or subjects of Aristotle's true thoughts, judgments or 
propositions. 



384 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

same object. A thing true under one aspect is sen- 
sible under another, and both at once. The thing is 
sensible, but it is not solely and essentially sensible; 
it is sensible without losing its own nature; it is at 
once, in Plato's words, the same as that which is 
sensible and yet different from it. The Sceptic, how- 
ever, takes the terms literally. "You admit," he will 
say, "that the true is sensible; this means that what 
is true and what is sensible are the same thing, or, in 
your own language, that where the relation expressed 
by the term true is found there we necessarily, also, 
find the relation expressed by the term sensible." 
Thus, where we understand two things elsewhere 
distinct are united and coexist in the same object and 
are in this sense identical, he understands that they 
form an absolute identity. According to him a 
thing is not at once sensible and true, but because it is 
sensible it is no longer true. He makes the bond 
which unites the two terms analytic not synthetic. 1 
This misconception of predication follows inevitably 
when relations are confused with things in them- 
selves. When the true and the sensible are taken 
for things in themselves, to say that the one is the 
other is to identify them completely and in essence. 
A thing can have several relations with other things, 
but it cannot be in itself several things. All sensible 
things are sensible in virtue of one relation, and in 
addition certain of them are in certain relations true 
as well. To this the Sceptic demurs: "Logic re- 
quires that all sensible things should be true or false, 
since qua sensible they are all identical, one is not 
more so than the other." This is the old plea which 

1 Compare the remarks of Mr. G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica, 
pp. gsqq., on what he terms the "naturalistic fallacy," e. g., since some- 
thing else (pleasure) is good, ergo, good is that something else (pleasure). 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 385 

loses its force when once it is understood that the 
identity expressed in predication is not absolute but 
partial and contingent. 

iEnesidemus next treats of causality: "There is no 
such thing as cause, for a body (corporeal thing) is not 
the cause of a corporeal thing. In fact, either this cor- 
poreal thing is not generated, like the atom of Epi- 
curus, or it is generated like ordinary bodies; it is either 
perceptible by the senses, like iron, or it is impercepti- 
ble, like the atom; in both cases it can produce noth- 
ing, for if it produces something it does so either by re- 
maining in itself or by uniting witrrsomething else. But 
by remaining in itself it can produce nothing but itself, 
it can produce nothing that is not in its own nature. 
Nor by uniting with something else can it any more 
produce a third thing which did not exist before, for it 
is not possible that one should thus become two or two 
become three. If one thing could thus become two, 
each of the two units thus produced would, in its turn, 
become two, and there would be four of them, and 
then each of the four in its turn doubling itself there 
would be eight units, and so ad infinitum. Now it is 
quite absurd to say that from a unity there proceeds 
an infinity of things, and it is no less absurd to say that 
from a unity there arises a multiplicity. Again it is 
absurd to say that from the union of a given number 
of things there can arise a numerically greater num- 
ber. For if one unit being added to another unit 
produces a third unit, this latter by being added to 
the former two will produce a fourth unit, this fourth 
a fifth unit, and so ad infinitum. Thus we have 
shown that body cannot be the cause of body; one 
corporeal thing cannot produce another. By the 
same reasoning, the non-corporeal cannot be the 
cause of the non-corporeal, for plurality can never 



386 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

come from unity, nor from a given plurality a numeri- 
cally greater plurality. Further, what is not cor- 
poreal, being incapable of contact, can neither do nor 
suffer, neither act nor be acted upon. But again, just 
as the incorporeal never generates the incorporeal, so 
a body cannot produce what is not corporeal nor the 
non-corporeal a body; for body does not contain in 
itself the nature of the non-corporeal nor does the 
non-corporeal contain in itself the nature of body. 
Plane-tree never gives birth to horse, nor horse to 
plane-tree, because the nature of horse is not in- 
cluded in that of plane-tree; horse never gives birth 
to man because the nature of man is not included 
in that of horse. So, too, from body there never 
arises the non-corporeal, because the nature of what 
is not corporeal is not in the nature of body. Con- 
versely from the incorporeal there never arises body. 
Nay, more, if one of the two were in the other it 
will never be engendered by the other, for if each of 
the two exists, it does not arise from the other, but 
possesses reality already; being already existent it 
cannot be generated, for by generation or becoming 
is meant a process or advance toward being. Hence, 
body not being the cause of the non-corporeal nor 
the non-corporeal the cause of body, we conclude that 
there is no such thing as cause." * 

This reasoning of iEnesidemus was completed by 
the enumeration in the fifth book of his Pyrrhonean 
Discourses of eight tropes 2 specially intended to 
refute those who believed in the existence of causes. 
The list as preserved by Sextus is couched in some- 

1 Sextus Emp., Adv. Math., IX, 218-227; c f- Diog. Laert., IX, 97-99. 
Contrast the more cautious attitude of Sextus himself, Pyrrh., Hyp., 
Ill, 13-29. 

3 Photius, Biblioth., 170, b, 17 sqq.; Sextus Emp., Pyrrh. Hyp, I, 
180-184. 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 387 

what obscure terms. These eight tropes differ from 
the ten tropes, both by their purpose, and the man- 
ner of their presentation. iEnesidemus is not con- 
cerned here to oppose to each other opinions of equal 
value which are contradictory, but merely to indicate 
various modes of false reasoning about causes, so 
that the word trope is employed in a new sense. The 
list which iEnesidemus gives is, truth to say, a list 
of sophisms, of errors perpetrated in the search for 
causes. Among such errors the eight which follow 
are conspicuous: (i) Resorting to a cause which is not 
evident and which is not attested by another thing 
which can be called evident; (2) stopping short at 
one single reason, when we have the choice of several 
good explanations equally plausible; (3) when things 
follow in a regular order, calling in causes which dis- 
regard this order; (4) supposing that the things 
which we do not see come about like the things which 
we do see, although they may conceivably come about 
otherwise; (5) explaining everything, as most philos- 
ophers have done, by the aid of elements which they 
have assumed instead of following the common no- 
tions admitted by everybody; (6) disregarding, as 
many philosophers do, all causes but those which 
conform to their own hypotheses, and passing over 
in silence those which are contrary to these hypotheses, 
in spite of the fact that these latter causes are also 
probable; (7) calling in causes which are contrary 
not only to appearances but even to principles pre- 
viously adopted; (8) employing for the explanation 
of doubtful things causes equally doubtful. iEnesi- 
demus went on to remark that it can happen that in 
affirming causes philosophers have been mistaken in 
various other ways which may be subsumed under 
those already given. 



388 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

Again we pause to make a few obvious comments. 
It is hardly necessary to point out that the idea of 
cause, when analysed, is easily seen to imply a re- 
lation, and that in a twofold aspect. A thing can 
only be conceived as cause in relation to its effects. 
iEnesidemus seems not to have touched on this 
point, and the later Sceptics hardly realised it. 
Again the act of thought by which a thing is 
known in itself is not the same as that by which 
it is known as a cause. The thing is at first con- 
ceived in itself in its essence; then it is looked upon 
as a cause; causality is a relation which is super- 
added to the idea that we have of the thing without 
destroying it and without being confounded with it. 
But the Sceptic does not take it so. Here again, 
authorised, we must admit, by language and by 
custom, he considers causality as a real objective 
quality belonging to the thing; he makes of it a thing 
in itself. Further, this property is identified with 
the thing itself in which it is suppposed to exist; do 
we not say that one thing is the cause of another ? 
And, consequently, if a thing is a cause, it is so ab- 
solutely and by its essence in its intimate nature. 
Once this is done it becomes necessary to compre- 
hend how this determinate essence can produce some- 
thing other than itself. But the question so stated 
is absurd. A thing once given and defined in its 
essence can only remain what it is. To say it is a 
cause is to say that it is something other than itself; 
this would be a contradiction. In modern parlance, 
from the idea of a thing will never be derived, analyt- 
ically, the idea of something else, and this remains 
true if in place of a single essence we consider several 
united in juxtaposition. In other words, as Hume 
and Kant have shown, causality is a synthetic rela- 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 389 

tion. The two terms posited as cause and effect are 
not given to our thought as identical, but only as 
having a certain connection under a category, sui 
generis, which we call causality. iEnesidemus un- 
derstood this, and this is why it is right to see in him 
a precursor of Hume and Kant. We are in a posi- 
tion now to determine what truth and falsehood the 
reasoning of iEnesidemus contained. So long as a 
cause is considered as a thing in itself his reasoning 
is unassailable. It loses all validity the moment we 
consider a cause as a relation established by thought 
between different objects. Such a relation connects 
the objects without modifying their true nature. 
They are at first what they are in themselves, and be- 
sides this they are looked upon as connected with 
other things by certain laws. If this much be pre- 
mised, there is no contradiction; in this way, what is 
corporeal may be connected with what is corporeal, 
what is incorporeal with what is incorporeal; we may 
even consider the corporeal as the cause of the in- 
corporeal, the incorporeal as the cause of the cor- 
poreal. 

But iEnesidemus was not content with disproving 
the existence of cause. He attacked the doctrine of 
signs, which in his day was the recognised method 
of research and scientific discovery. Ignorance of 
cause may debar us from the direct method of ex- 
planation, from descending from the cause to the 
effects; but is not an indirect method possible, may 
we not ascend from effects to causes ? Such a method 
implies that certain phenomena, the effects, are signs, 
and certain others, the causes, are the things signified 
by these signs. Ratiocination would then be the 
means which the mind possesses for rising to the ex- 
planation of things. Such was precisely the thesis 



390 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

of both the Stoics and Epicureans which iEneside- 
mus undertook to overthrow. According to Photius, 1 
iEnesidemus, in the fourth book of his treatise, de- 
clared that there are no visible signs which disclose 
invisible things, and those who believe in their exist- 
ence are the dupes of a vain illusion. This testimony 
is confirmed by a more explicit passage in Sextus. 2 
If phenomena appear in the same way to all ob- 
servers who are similarly constituted, and if, further, 
signs are phenomena, then the signs must appear in 
the same way to all observers similarly constituted. 
This hypothetical proposition is self-evident; if the 
antecedent be granted the consequent follows. Now, 
continues Sextus, (i) phenomena do appear in the 
same way to all observers similarly constituted. But 
(2) signs do not appear in the same way to all ob- 
servers similarly constituted. The truth of propo- 
sition (1) rests upon observation, for though, to the 
jaundiced or bloodshot eye, white objects do not 
appear white, yet to the normal eye, i. e., to all ob- 
servers similarly constituted, white objects invariably 
do appear white. For the truth of proposition (2) the 
art of medicine furnishes decisive instances. The 
symptoms of fever, the flush, the moisture of the 
skin, the high temperature, the rapid pulse, when ob- 
served by doctors of the like mental constitution, are 
not interpreted by them in the same way. Here 
Sextus cites some of the conflicting theories main- 
tained by the authorities of his age. In these symp- 
toms Herophilus sees a mark of the good quality of 
the blood; for Erasistratus they are a sign of the 
passage of the blood from the veins to the arteries; 
for Asclepiades they prove, too great tension of 
corpuscles in interspaces, although both corpuscles 

1 Biblioth., 170, b. 12. 2 Adv. Math., VIII, 215 sqq. 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 391 

and interspaces, being infinitesimally small, cannot 
be perceived by sense but only apprehended by the 
intellect. Sextus, having borrowed this argument 
from iEnesidemus, has developed it in his own fash- 
ion, and is probably himself responsible for the 
medical instances which he has selected. He uses it 
to establish that signs are not, as the Epicureans 
maintain, sensible things. From his first hypotheti- 
cal proposition, coupled with propositions (i) and (2), 
Sextus infers that signs are not phenomena. We 
have no right, then, to call any phenomenon a sign, 
and, if this be so, reasoning from effects to causes 
is invalid. 

It remains, then, to prove that neither do they 
belong to the domain of things intelligible, as was the 
view of the Stoics; in other words, that they cannot 
be apprehended by reason or intellect. This proof 
Sextus undertakes to furnish. But there is no evi- 
dence that iEnesidemus himself ever dreamed of 
doing so. He must have confined himself to demon- 
strating that there are no "signs" in the sense of 
things visible disclosing what is invisible, i. e., no 
signs among sensible things; or, in the words of 
Photius, "There are no signs, manifest and obvious, 
of what is obscure and latent." Sextus himself re- 
minds us that he has slightly modified the argument 
of iEnesidemus by taking the term phenomena, or 
appearances, as the equivalent of sensible phenomena, 
appearances to sense. 1 It is highly improbable that 
iEnesidemus had already made the distinciton famil- 
iar to the later Sceptics between two classes of signs. 
According to Sextus, 2 there are signs which act, as we 

1 Adv. Math., VIII, 216. 

2 Pyrrh. Hyp., II, 100 ; cf. the context, 99-102 ; Adv. Math., VIII, 
148-158. 



392 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

should say, by the law of association, reminding us 
that in past experience two phenomena were con- 
joined, as smoke with fire, a scar with a wound, a 
stab to the heart with subsequent death. If after- 
ward one of the two phenomena is temporarily 
obscured and passes out of immediate consciousness, 
the other, if present, may serve to recall it; we are 
justified in calling the one which is present a sign, and 
the other, which is temporarily absent, the thing 
signified. With the term "sign," as thus understood, 
the sign commemorative or reminiscent, Sextus has 
no quarrel. By its aid prediction is justified; we can 
infer fire from smoke, the wound from the scar, ap- 
proaching death from the fatal stab, for in all these 
cases we proceed upon past experience. Sextus re- 
serves his hostility for another class of signs which 
we may call the sign demonstrative. When one of 
the two phenomena assumed to be the thing signified 
never has occurred in actual experience, but belongs 
wholly, by its own nature, to the region of the un- 
known, the dogmatists nevertheless maintained that, 
if certain conditions were fulfilled, its existence was 
indicated and demonstrated by the other phenomenon, 
which they called the sign. For instance, according 
to the dogmatists, the movements of the body indi- 
cate and demonstrate the existence of the soul; they 
are its sign. It is "sign," then, in this latter sense, 
the indicative or demonstrative sign, whose existence 
Sextus disputes and undertakes to refute. To make 
this distinction implies a clear grasp of the method of 
observation as opposed to the logical or dialectical 
method, in short, to the high priori road. His eight 
tropes incline us to credit iEnesidemus with a scien- 
tific turn of mind. They show a tendency to inter- 
pret the data of experience impartially, without pre- 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 393 

conceived ideas. And yet, as we have seen, they are, 
after all, the work of a logician rather than of an ob- 
server of nature; nor is there any extant authority to 
warrant us in attributing the distinction in question 
to iEnesidemus rather than to Sextus. The distinc- 
tion which iEnesidemus undoubtedly made between 
signs presented to sense and signs presented to intel- 
lect is not the same as that made by Sextus between 
signs commemorative and signs demonstrative, for 
the Epicureans, who admitted none but signs pre- 
sented to sense, nevertheless believed in the possibility 
of the inductive leap, as we should call it, from the 
known to the unknown. Indeed, there are extant 
fragments of a treatise on signs and inference by 
Philodemus, a later Epicurean, which are interesting 
because the inferential method recommended bears 
a distinct analogy to that of modern inductive logic. 
The foregoing considerations are apparently con- 
firmed by passages in Sextus where he seems to have 
followed iEnesidemus and to have inadvertently ad- 
duced as a demonstrative sign one which upon ex- 
amination turns out to be unmistakably a sign be- 
longing to the other class. 1 

The theory of signs, so far as we have good evidence 
for attributing it to iEnesidemus, comes to very 
little. It is manifestly incomplete. Some, indeed, 
have seen in it nothing more than a particular form of 
the tenth trope. Others, however, are inclined to 
believe it had for iEnesidemus a wider bearing, and 
to see in him a precursor of J. S. Mill, if, indeed, he 
is to be credited with the arguments adduced by 
Sextus. When he is treating of reminiscent signs 
Sextus does, indeed, describe induction in terms not 
unworthy of Mill. The reminiscent sign is a phenom- 

1 Pyrrh. Hyp., II, 106; Adv. Math., VIII, 252. 



394 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

enon which has been clearly observed at the same time 
as the thing of which it is a sign. If it presents itself 
again after the latter has been obscured, it reminds 
us of the thing which was observed simultaneously 
with itself, but is no longer actually in evidence; thus 
smoke makes us think of fire. We have often seen 
these two phenomena together or coexisting; as soon 
as we perceive one of them, memory suggests to us 
the idea of the other, namely, the fire not now actually 
visible. So, too, with the scar which shows after the 
wound and the stab to the heart which is followed 
by death. On the sight of the scar, memory suggests 
to us the wound which preceded it; on seeing a man 
stabbed in the heart, we predict his approaching 
death. What the Sceptic combats is the theory of 
demonstrative signs, that is to say, the theory accord- 
ing to which there is a necessary and constant con- 
nection between phenomena, a causal nexus such, in 
short, as is still maintained by dogmatists to-day. 
It is agreed that from their own point of view the 
sceptical arguments are unassailable. If we adhere 
to the data of experience, to phenomena alone, it is 
impossible to see in induction anything else than an 
association of ideas founded on habit and, like it, 
variable. Thus Mill, while trying to establish his 
scientific theory of induction, admits that induction 
cannot be absolutely valid. It only holds for our 
world, and there may be systems in which phenomena 
are not submitted to any laws or uniformities. We 
do not claim that iEnesidemus got as far as that; 
there is nothing in the Greek texts to authorise such 
a statement. He stopped short of explaining in what 
sense and how far there can be such a thing as ex- 
perimental science without the casual nexus. But 
he understood and proved that there is no such thing 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 395 

as science in the absolute sense of the dogmatists. 
There is, indeed, no science, no demonstration, unless 
ideas are linked together by a necessary band or 
connection, but there is no true necessity unless re- 
lation can be rationally determined or, in modern 
parlance, determined a priori. Now, given a fact, 
or, as the Stoics call it, a sign, let us try to determine 
a priori the nature of the thing signified. Here, just 
as when we were dealing with cause, it is obvious 
that we never can succeed, and if we never succeed, 
there will be no demonstration. This is what iEnesi- 
demus meant, and he is unanswerable. 

We can now assign iEnesidemus his place in the 
sceptical school. Sextus seems to oppose him to the 
later Sceptics, of whom Agrippa appears to have been 
one of the first. His originality cannot be seriously 
questioned. It was he who really resuscitated 
Pyrrhonism, and in the main it retained the form he 
gave it, though some modifications were bound to 
occur in the course of two centuries. iEnesidemus 
distinguished himself as a dialectician. Metaphys- 
ical paradoxes and dialectical subtleties at once too 
absurd for refutation and impossible to refute were 
his stock-in-trade. If there was any proposition 
which he withdrew from universal doubt, it was the 
dictum of Heraclitus, the identity of all contradictions 
in the absolute, which is a metaphysical and tran- 
scendental thesis. But before making an imputation 
so gravely affecting his consistency as a Sceptic, we 
ought to be sure of our ground. Sextus, who care- 
fully distinguished scepticism from systems which 
might be confused with it, starts with that of Her- 
aclitus. In the course of his remarks he makes the 
plain statement that iEnesidemus and his followers 
declared scepticism to be a path to the philosophy 



396 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

of Heraclitus. There are other passages in which 
Sextus mentions, usually without indorsing them, 
opinions of iEnesidemus, such as that time is real, 
the primary corporeal thing, or to be identified with 
air; that phenomena are of two kinds, specific and 
generic; that motion may be divided into spatial and 
qualitative, that thought or intellect is "outside" or 
independent of the body. 1 Some of these opinions 
are ascribed by Sextus to iEnesidemus "according to 
Heraclitus," a phrase which hardly suggests that the 
opinion in question belonged properly to Heraclitus 
and was disowned by iEnesidemus as it would be by 
Sextus himself. 

Some scholars, indeed, refuse to accept the plain 
statement of Sextus, and think the whole difficulty 
may be removed by the assumption of a misconcep- 
tion on his part. But it is very unlikely that Sextus 
failed to distinguish the opinions of Heraclitus 
reported by iEnesidemus from those of iEneside- 
mus himself, whereas, if the Pyrrhonean Sceptic 
who had broken with the Academy did in the end 
himself follow the path to Heraclitus, his opinions at 
this stage of his philosophic development could be 
conveniently cited as those of "iEnesidemus accord- 
ing to Heraclitus." A further question remains. 
Were these opinions put forward dogmatically, or did 
iEnesidemus by becoming a Heraclitean still not 
cease to be a sceptic and put them forward merely 
as what appeared to him ? In the absence of further 
evidence the question can hardly be decided. But 
it is at all events easy to discriminate him from his 
successors. They were for the most part, as we have 
seen, medical men. To speculation, which they de- 

l Pyrrh. Hyp., Ill, 17; Adv. Math., X, 233; ib., VIII, 8; ib., X, 38; 
ib., XII, 349. 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 397 

clared futile, they opposed their art, a practical 
science, which they held to be legitimate and necessary. 
Scepticism was an end in itself to iEnesidemus; his 
successors made of it an introduction to the medical 
art. If later Sceptics believed in anything it was 
solely in empirical sequences of phenomena discover- 
able by observation apart from any theory. In this 
direction iEnesidemus influenced them but little. 
If he was a metaphysician they tended to become 
positivists. But again there is no evidence that they 
ever actually took this decisive step. Coexistences 
and sequences of phenomena might be to them all 
that we can know, but they still talked glibly of things 
in themselves, in the very act of refusing their assent 
to them. The function of thorough-going scepticism 
is invariably critical, though the Sceptics themselves 
seldom see this If Hume's scepticism was, as Kant 
supposed, a reductio ad absurdum of thorough -going 
empiricism, it may also be said that the scepticism of 
the Pyrrhonists was a reductio ad absurdum of those 
assumptions of crude realism and materialistic em- 
piricism which were the common property of all the 
post-Aristotelian schools which the Sceptics them- 
selves shared with their opponents the Stoics and 
Epicureans. In justice, however, to the Sceptics we 
must defend them from the charge of inconsistency 
so frequently brought against them by modern critics. 
How, it is asked, can universal doubt be reconciled 
with the attitude of practical men taking part in 
everyday life. The answer given by Sextus is clear 
and explicit. The Pyrrhonist does not deny phe- 
nomena, for they are the only criterion by which he 
can regulate action, and inactivity implies death. 
In his daily life he sometimes obeys the guidance of 
nature, at other times the compulsion of his feelings; 



398 STOIC AND EPICUREAN 

sometimes the tradition of laws and customs, at others 
the teaching of the arts. But in all these ways he is 
merely following appearances or phenomena. 1 This 
attitude has been wittily described as the philosophy 
of the dinner-bell, and it is easy to sneer at Sextus 
for not comprehending the effects of his own work as 
a whole or realising that in the attempt to subvert all 
established principles he was cutting away the ground 
on which he stood. The critics have not really 
thought out the sceptical position. They have not 
faced the consequences of general uncertainty. The 
calmness and self-possession of the Pyrrhonist favours 
the inference that he considered his own attitude 
reasonable, as if in a world of unreason and a chaos 
of unrelated phenomena there could be such a thing 
as a reasonable attitude. He might fairly be charged 
with inconsistency if he admitted consistency in ex- 
perience and in the universe. But this is just what 
he declines to affirm. 

Upon this charge let Hume, the greatest of scep- 
tics, answer for his brethren of antiquity. He has 
told us that it is only by forgetting his own argu- 
ments that he can recover cheerfulness. "Most for- 
tunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of 
dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that 
purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melan- 
choly and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of 
mind, or by some avocation and lively impression of 
my senses, which obliterates all these chimeras. ... I 
may, nay I must yield to the current of nature in sub- 
mitting to my senses and understanding; and in this 
blind submission I show most perfectly my sceptical 
disposition and principles. But does it follow that 
I must strive against the current of nature, which 

1 Sextus Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp., I, 23, 24. 



THE REVIVAL OF PYRRHONISM 399 

leads me to indolence and pleasure; . . . and that 
I must torture my brains with subtilities and sophis- 
tries, at the very time that I cannot satisfy myself 
concerning the reasonableness of so painful an ap- 
plication, nor have any tolerable prospect of arriving 
by its means at truth and certainty ? . . . These are 
the sentiments of my spleen and indolence; and, in- 
deed, I must confess that philosophy has nothing to 
oppose to them, and expects a victory more from the 
returns of a serious, good-humour'd disposition than 
from the force of reason and conviction. In all the 
incidents of life we ought still to preserve our scepti- 
cism. If we believe that fire warms or water re- 
freshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains 
to think otherwise. Nay, if we are philosophers, it 
ought only to be on sceptical principles, and from an 
inclination which we feel to the employing ourselves 
after that manner." * This is the attitude of the 
ancient Sceptic, and the fact that other men denounce 
it as irrational or inconsistent is part of its justifi- 
cation. 

1 Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt. IV, sub fin. (Works, ed. Green 
and Grose. Vol. I, p. 548 sqq.) 



SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 

For the Stoics the general reader may consult: 

Grant, A. The Ancient Stoics. Essay VI, prefixed to The Ethics 

of Aristotle. London (1856), 4th ed., 1884. 
Long, G. The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus. 

London (1862), 1886. 
Long, G. The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheiridion and 

Fragments. Translated with a Life of Epictetus and a view of 

his philosophy. London (1877), 1891. 
Rendall, G. H. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself; an Eng- 
lish Translation with Introductory Study of Stoicism and the 

Last of the Stoics. London, 1898. 
Martha, C. Les moralistes sous l'empire romain, philosophes et 

poetes. Paris (1864), 1881. 
Dill, S. Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. London, 

1904. 

For the Epicureans: — 

Wallace, W. Epicureanism. London, 1880. 

Martha, C. Le poeme de Lucrece, morale, religion, science. 
Paris, 1869. 

Masson, J. Lucretius, Epicurean and Poet. London: Murray, 
1907, and A Complementary Volume, 1909. 

Munro, H. A. J. Translation of Lucretius. New edition. Lon- 
don: Bell, 1908. 

The following list of books has been drawn up for the use of 
those who make this epoch of philosophy a special study: — 

I. INDISPENSABLE COLLECTIONS OF MATERIAL 

Pearson, A. C. The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes, with Intro- 
duction and Explanatory Notes. London, 1891. [The best 
introduction to the Stoics.] 

401 



402 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Von Arnim, J. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. Vol. I, Zeno et 
Zenonis discipuli, 1905. Vol. II, Chrysippi fragmenta logica 
et physica, 1903 Vol. Ill, Chrysippi fragmenta moralia. 
Fragmenta successorum Chrysippi, 1903. Leipzig, Teubner. 

Diels, H. Doxographi Graeci. Berolini, 1879. 

Stobaeus. Anthologii Libri Duo Priores qui inscribi solent Eclogae 
Physica; et Ethicae, recc. Wachsmuth et Hense. Berolini, apud 
Weidmannos, 1884. 

Usener, H. Epicurea. [The first edition out of print.] Lipsiae: 
Teubner, 1887. 

II. WORKS OF REFERENCE 

Bonhoffer, A. Epictet und die Stoa. Untersuchungen zur stois- 
chen Philosophic Stuttgart, 1800. 

BonhSffer, A. Die Ethik des Stoikers Epictet. Anhang: Exkurse 
iiber einige wichtige Punkte der stoischen Ethik. Stuttgart, 
1894. 

Brochard, V. Les Sceptiques grecs. Paris, 1887. 

Dyroff, A. Die Ethik der alten Stoa. Berlin, 1897. 

Guyau, M. La Morale d' Epicure et ses rapports avec les doctrines 
contemporaines. Paris, 1878. 

Heinze, M. Die Lehre vom Logos in der griechischen Philosophie. 
Oldenburg, 1872. 

Hirzel, R. Untersuchungen zur Cicero's philosophischen Schriften. 
3 vols. Leipzig, 1882. The second volume has for subtitle: 
Die Entwicklung der stoischen Philosophie. 

Krische, A. B. Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten Philoso- 
phie. I. Bd. Die theologischen Lehren der griechischen Den- 
ker. Eine Priifung der Darstellung Cicero's. Gottingen, 1840. 

Maccoll, N. The Greek Sceptics. London: Macmillan, 1869. 

Masson, J. The Atomic Theory of Lucretius. London, 1884. 

Natorp, P. Forschungen zur Geschichte des Erkenntnissproblems 
im Alterthum. Protagoras, Demokrit, Epikur und die Skepsis. 
Berlin, 1884. 

Ogereau, F. Essai sur le systeme philosophique des Stoiciens. 
Paris, 1885. 

Patrick, M. M. Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism. Lon- 
don: Bell, 1899. 

Ravaisson, F. Essai sur le stoicisme. Paris, 1856. 

Saisset, E. Aenesideme. Paris, 1840. 

Schmekel, A. Die Philosophie der mittleren Stoa in ihrem ge- 
schichtlichen Zusammenhange. Berlin, 1892. 



SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 403 

Siebeck, H. Die Umbildung der peripatetischen Naturphilosophie 
in die der Stoiker. (In Untersuchungen zur Philosophic der 
Griechen. Zweite, neu bearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage.) 
2 ed. Freiburg, i. B., 1888. 

Stein, L. Die Psychologie der Stoa. 1 Band. Metaphysisch- 
anthropologischer Theil. Berlin, 1886. (Berliner Studien fur 
klassische Philologie und Archaologie. 3 Band.) 

Stein, L. Die Erkentnisstheorie der Stoa (2 Band der Psycholo- 
gie). Berlin, 1888. (Berliner Studien, 7 Band.) 

Wilamovitz-Mbllendorff, U. v. Antigonos von Karystos. (Phi- 
lologische Untersuchungen von Kiessling und Wilamovitz- 
Mollendorff, 4 Heft). Berlin: Weidmann, 1881. 

Woltjer, J. Lucretii Philosophia cum fontibus comparata. Spe- 
cimen Litterarum quo inquiritur quatemus Epicuri Philoso- 
phiam tradiderit Lucretius. Groningae, 1877. 

Zeller, E. Nacharistotelische Philosophie I. (Philosophic der 
Griechen III, 1.) Vierte Auflage. Leipzig, 1909. [This pos- 
thumous edition appeared too late for use in the present volume] 

m. EDITIONS 

Seneca. Texts of the Epistles, by Hense, Leipzig, Teubner, 1898, 
and the Naturales Quaestiones, by Gercke, 1907. 

Epictetus (transcribed by Arrian). Text by Schenkl, Lipsiae, 1894. 
The last complete annotated edition is: Epicteteae Philosophia? 
monumenta ad Codd. Mss. fidem recensuit, Latina versione 
adnotationibus, indicibusque illustravit Io. Schweighauser. 
5 Tom. Lipsiae, 1 799-1800. [The last two of the five volumes 
contain the Commentary of Simplicius on the Encheiridion.] 

M. Aurelius Antoninus. Text by Stich, Lipsiae, 1882. Gataker's 
valuable edition has for title: Marci Antonini Imperatoris de 
rebus suis, sive de eis quas ad se pertinere censebat, Libri XII, 
Locis haud paucis repurgati, suppleti, restituti : Versione insuper 
Latina nova; Lectionibus item variis, Locisque parallelis ad 
marginem adjectis; Ac Commentario perpetuo, explicati atque 
illustrati; Studio operaque Thomae Gatakeri, Londinatis, 
Cantabrigiae, 1652. 

Cicero. De Finibus. By J. N. Madvig. Editio altera. Hauniae, 
1869. 
De Natura Deorum. By J. B. Mayor. 3 vols. Cambridge, 

(Eng.), 1880. 
Academica. By J. S. Reid. London: Macmillan, 1885. 
De Officiis. By H. A. Holden. Cambridge (Eng.), 1886. 



404 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Plutarch. The Four Tracts: — De Stoicorum Repugnantiis; De 
Communibus Notitiis adversus Stoicos; Non posse suaviter 
vivere secundum Epicurum; Adversus Coloten; — in Wytten- 
bach's edition of the Moralia, Oxonii, 1795 (Lipsiae, 1796). 
Timon. Sillographorum Graecorum Reliquiae. Recogn. et enarrav. 
Curtius Wachsmuth. Praecedit commentatio de Timone 
Phliasio ceterisque sillographis. Lipsiae, 1885. 
Sextus Empiricus. Opera Greece et Latine. Notas addidit J. A. 
Fabricius. 2 vols. Lipsiae, 1718. Editio emendatior, Lipsiae, 
Kuhn, 1840-1841. 
Galen. De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis libri novem. Text by 

Ivan Muller. Lipsiae, 1874. 
Metrodorus. Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta collegit A. Korte. 
Leipzig, 1890. (In Jahrbticher f. classische Philologie, Sup- 
plementband XVII, pp. 529-597.) 
Lucretius. With Notes and a Translation, by H. A. J. Munro. 
Fourth edition finally revised. Cambridge (Eng.), 1886. 
Revisione del Testo, Commento e Studi Introduttivi di Carlo 
Giussani. 4 vols. Torino, 1896-1898. Also a Supple- 
ment, Note Lucreziane. Torino, 1900. [It is to be hoped 
that this edition will appear in an English dress.] 
Edited by W. A. Merrill, Ph.D., New York, American Book 
Company, 1907. 
Diogenes of (Enoanda. Diogenis (Enoandensis Fragmenta or- 
dinavit et explicavit Johannes William. Lipsia?, 1907. 



INDEX 



Academy, New or Sceptical, 7, 340, 
35i» 359. 369, 375. 3795 gener- 
ally, 3I7-358- 

Academy, Old, 317, 349, 357. 

Accident, non-essential quality, 
221, 241, 242, 270-272. 

^Enesidemus, 373 note, 374~397; 
writings, 375; probable date, 

375, 376- 

Agrippa, Pyrrhonean Sceptic, his 
five tropes, 379. 

Alcmaeon of Croton, 62. 

Alexander of Abonuteichos, 308. 

Alexander the Great, 3, 314. 

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, 19, 
204, 219, 283, 306; refuted by 
Epicurus, 244, ; cited, 244, 245. 

Anaxarchus, 314. 

Anaximenes of Miletus cited, 20. 

Anima in Lucretius, 267, 268. 

Animus or mens, in Lucretius, 267, 
268. 

Antigonus Gonatas, king of Mace- 
donia, 5. 

Antiochus of Ascalon, Eclectic, 

356-358, 375- 
Antipater of Tarsus, sixth head of 

Stoic school, 326, 360, 361. 
Antisthenes, founder of the Cynic 

school, 88. 
Apollonius of Cyrene, Megarian 

philosopher, 320 note. 
Appetitus, 66. 

Aratus of Soli, pupil of Zeno, au- 
thor of an astronomical poem, 

6, 14. 
Arcesilas of Pitane, 317-323, 375. 
Archedemus, eclectic Stoic, 111, 

112, 361. 
Aristippus, 164, 165, 210. 
Aristo of Chios, heterodox pupil of 

Zeno, 6, 90, 368; cited, 86. 



Aristocles, 314, 317. 

Aristotle, his dualism and trans- 
cendent First Cause, 19, 20, 22, 
39, 338; his influence on the 
Stoics, 13, 28, 32, 41, 62; criti- 
cised by Chrysippus, 54; his 
ten categories revised by the 
Stoics, 56; contrast between 
them in psychology, 64, 65, 105, 
points of contact with Stoic 
ethics, 3, 91, 112; general, 205, 
213, 256, 258, 272, 283, 311, 323, 
337, 349, 353, 357, 382. 

Aristotle, works formerly ascribed 
to De Lineis Insecabilibus, 212; 
De Mundo, 354; De Virtutibus 
et Vitiis, De Affectibus, 355; 
his Ethics cited, 54, 112, 164. 

Aristoxenus, 267. 

Arrian, published Discourses and 
Encheiridion of Epictetus, 113, 
124. 

Asclepiades, physician, 390. 

Assent, 64, 65, 72, 73, 315, 318, 
344, 346. 

Atom, meaning of, 220; of Demo- 
critus, 207; of Epicurus, 24, 25; 
terms for, 220, 221; how de- 
scribed, 218, 222; shapes, 223; 
motion of; 224-227, 255-264; 
systems of atoms, 233; unchange- 
able qualities, 240-242; mini- 
mal parts or minima, 248-251; 
declination, 255-264, 345. 

Atomic theory of Leucippus unpop- 
ular in antiquity, 205; adopted 
by Epicurus, 207. 

Atomists, 174, 219, 256; problems 
of, 204; their materialism, 205, 
206; contrasted with Eleatics, 
207; theory of hearing, 239. 

Atticus, an Epicurean, 307. 



405 



406 



INDEX 



Berkeley, 246, 247. 

Body, how defined by Stoics, 23; 
sole reality, 23, 60, 206; am- 
biguous in Epicurus and Lu- 
cretius, 220, 221, argument of 
Carneades, 331. 

Boethus, heterodox Stoic, 361, 

3 6 4- 
Bronte, Emily, cited, 17. 
Buddhists, 166, 167. 
Butler, 347. 

Callipho, 349. 

Canon of induction, Epicurean, 

216,220, 238, 255, 259. 
Canonic of Epicurus, 213. 
Carneades of Cyrene, head of 

Sceptical Academy, 41, 322-352, 

354-356, 359-36i, 364, 369, 373, 

375- 
Cassius, Epicurean, 307. 
Cato, typical Stoic, 18; his suicide, 

101; revered by later Stoics, 88, 

369- 

Causality, arguments of ^Enesi- 
demus upon, 385-389. 

Cause, with Stoics always efficient 
cause, 23; primary and sub- 
sidiary distinguished, 345. 

Christian teaching, compared with 
Stoic as to virtue, 87; moral 
progress, 119; slavery, 144. 

Chrysippus of Soli, pupil and suc- 
cessor of Cleanthes, 7, 8, 28, 54, 
77, 8 5- il°, 322, 323, 325, 328, 
329, 33*, 335, 345, 35°, 360, 
361, 363, 364, 368; fragments 
' cited, 30, 44, 45, 46: his views 
on moral evil, 42-46; innova- 
tions in logic, 56; definition of 
reason, 66; account of presen- 
tation, 69; of the criterion of 
truth, 70, 71; authority for the 
ethical summary of Diogenes 
Laertius, 78; views on moral 
progress, 88, 95; on emotion, 109. 

Cicero, 18, 82, 158, 159, 307,315- 
3 J 7, 327, 365, 366, 375, 376; his 
rendering of Greek technical 
terms, 63, 66, 93; objection to the 
Stoic ethical theory, 83; cited, 
72, 80, 99, 100, 288, 290, 292, 
358-360. 



Cleanthes of Assos, pupil and suc- 
cessor of Zeno, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 28, 
61, 77, 96, in, 136, 140, 338, 
346, 368; his Hymn to Zeus, 
14-18; fragments cited, 76, 89. 

Cleomedes, Stoic writer on astron- 
omy, 14, 210. 

Cleomenes, king of Sparta, 6. 

Clitomachus (Hasdrubal) of Car- 
thage, successor of Carneades, 
322, 324, 340, 349, 356, 358, 373, 

375- 
Comte, 159. 
Coniunctum (see Property), 241, 

242, 270. 
Consensus gentium, argument from, 

327- . 
Copernicus, 32. 
Cosmogony, Stoic, 30-38; earlier 

Atomists, 256; of Epicurus, 228, 

229, 255-262, 274, 275. 
Cosmology, Stoic, 22-30, 32. 
Cosmopolitanism, Stoic, 9, 140- 

143- 
Crantor, Academic, 320, 357. 
Crates, Academic, 357. 
Crates, the Cynic, teacher of Zeno, 

5- 

Criterion, of truth and error, to the 
Stoics, 69-73; to Epicurus, 188, 
213-218, 237, 238; objections of 
Arcesilas, 317-320; of Car- 
neades, 324; of Philo and An- 
tiochus, 356, 357. 

Cynics, precursors of Stoics, 9; 
nominalists, 22 ; points of diver- 
gence from Stoics, 10, 90, 97. 

Cyrenaics, followers of Aristippus, 
164, 210, 348. 

Daemon, 78. 

Daemons (superhuman beings), 

285-287. 
Dalton, 204. 
Dante, 32. 
Darwin, 42. 
Declination of the atom, 255-264, 

345- 

Demetrius Poliorcetes, 5. 

Democritus, 26; his doctrine of 
natural necessity, 19, 22, 174, 
201, 259, 261; inherited by 
Stoics, 174; his ethical teaching, 



INDEX 



407 



167, 316; theory of vision, 235; 
of hearing, 239; on size of atoms, 
242; atoms and void, 282; did 
not distinguish between soul and 
mind, 283, fragment cited by 
Stobaeus, 284; his doctrine of 
superhuman daemons, 285, 286; 
how modified by Epicurus, 287; 
other notices 20, 22, 206, 207, 
229, 230, 242, 244, 256-259. 
Design, argument from, 41, 329, 

337- 

Desire, how conceived by Epicurus, 
165, 166. 

Destiny, Stoic, 26, 76; distin- 
guished from necessity, 173, 344, 

345- 

Determinism, Stoic, 344, 345; re- 
jected by Epicurus, 172, 173, 
260. 

Dicasarchus, 267. 

Diodorus Cronus, Megarian phil- 
osopher, 5, 320 note. 

Diodorus of Tyre, Eclectic Peri- 
patetic, 349. 

Diogenes Laertius cited, 78. 

Diogenes of (Enoanda, Epicurean, 
309-311; cited, 189, 190, 310. 

Diogenes of Sinope, Cynic, 88, 129. 

Diogenes the Babylonian, fifth 
head of Stoic school, 322, 360, 
361. 

Dionysius of Heraclea, herterodox 
pupil of Zeno, 6. 

Discourses of Epictetus cited, 114, 
118, 126, 128, 129, 134-136, 139, 
140, 145. 

Disease, 43~45> 5°- 

Divination, upheld by Stoics, 41, 
3 2 7> 335. 3455 rejected by Epicu- 
rus, 301; attacked by Carneades, 
327, 328; abandoned by Panse- 
tius, 364; revived by Posido- 
nius, 367. 

Duty, Stoic theory of, 93-98; as 
exhibited by later Stoics, 98, 
1 25-151; modern notion of, how 
evolved, 93. 

Eclecticism, 351, 353-370. 
Eleatics contrasted with Atomists, 

206, 207. 
Eliot, George, 156. 



Emanations (effluxes, films, husks, 
idols, images, outlines), accord- 
ing to Empedocles, Democritus, 
and Epicurus, 229-232; their 
velocity, 232-234, efficient causes 
of sensation and thought, 235- 
240. 

Emotions (affections, passions), 
Stoic doctrine of, 102-110; view 
of Posidonius, 367. 

Empedocles, 204, 205, 219, 229, 
230, 239; his theory of vision, 
236; of hearing, 239; cited, 236. 

Encheiridion of Epictetus cited, 
119, 124, 131-133, 148- 

End, of action, the ethical, as con- 
ceived by the Stoics, 74-85; by 
Epicurus, 163-173; view of 
Pyrrho, 316; classification of 
Carneades, 347-351. 

Epictetus, of Hierapolis, 14, 18, 
39, 68, 88, 89, 113, 127, 141, 146, 
150, 151, 360, 368; his definition 
of the ethical end, 76; threefold 
division of actions, 98; views on 
suicide, 101; on pleasure, 111; 
on piety, 133-137; his three 
stages of instruction and disci- 
pline, 121-125; his ideal mis- 
sionary or "Cynic," 129, 138. 
See also Discourses and Enchei- 
ridion. 

Epicureans, 7, 8, 60, 116, 134, 
161, 162, 175, 178, 180, 181, 196, 
208, 304-308, 315, 327, 350, 354, 
360, 369, 390, 391, 393. 

Epicurus, 153-302; letter to Men- 
ceceus, 161, 167-173, 260, 289, 
291, 298; to Herodotus, 161, 219 
-280; golden maxims, 161, 182- 
189, 214; fragments cited, 156, 
159,160,190-197; other notices, 
24> 25, 4°, 4i, 43. m> T-33, i39> 
3°6, 327, 328, 340, 345> 346, 348, 
359>368. 

Epistemology, Stoic, 66-73; Epi- 
curean, 188, 213-218, 237, 238. 

Erasistratus, physician, 390. 

Eubulides, Megarian philosopher, 
320 note, 325 note. 

Euclid, 210, 211. 

Eudemus of Rhodes, 36, 38. 

Eudoxus, 32, 164. 



408 



INDEX 



Eventum (see Accident), 241, 242, 
270. 

Evil, problem of, 42-53; argu- 
ments of Carneades, 334, 335, 

35°- 

External things admit the concep- 
tion of relative value, 89-93. 

Extremity, meaning to Epicurus, 
221, 245. 

Films, or husks, of external ob- 
jects. See Emanations. 

Fcedera naturae, 201. 

" Follow .Nature, " how interpreted 
by Cynics, 10; by Stoics, 77, 

freedom, man's moral, according 
to Stoics, 76, 77, 346; to Epicu- 
rus, 260-264; position of Car- 
neades, 344-347- 

Froude, 308. 

Galen, physician, 104 note, 371. 

Galton, 201. 

Gellius cited, 44. 

Giussani, 220 note, 293, 295-297. 

God, to Stoics the universe, 38-43 

(see Pantheism); criticism of 

Carneades, 326-340. 
Gods, existence of, affirmed by 

Epicurus, 168, 174, 282-306, 

332, 339- 

Gomperz, 235. 

Greek science, defects of, 203. 

Greek Terms, Aphasia, 315; Apo- 
proegmena, 90; Askesis, 124; 
Ataraxia, 315 note; Deikela, 231; 
Doxa Prosphatos, 104; Epi- 
ballon, 93 note; Eudsemonia, 
84; Hegemonikon, 61, 103; 
Horme, 66, 103; Kathekon, 93, 
94, 95, 96, 122, 123, 361; Lek- 
ton, 58, 59, 63; Logos, 10, n; 
meaning to Heraclitus, 12; to 
Cleanthes, 16; defined, 25, 70; 
Nous, 19, 283; Pneuma, 60, 329; 
Poneros, 130 note; Proegmena, 
90 note; Systaseis, 232. 

Guyau, 260. 

Hecato of Rhodes, Eclectic Stoic. 

366. 
Helvidius Priscus, 113. 



Heraclides, Stoic writer on Ho- 
meric Allegories, 14. 

Heraclides, teacher of .^Enesidemus, 
373 note, 375. 

Heraclitus, precursor of Stoics, 
10; studied by Zeno and Clean- 
thes, 12; his Fragments cited, 
10-12; his Logos on its ma- 
terial side Fire, n; his implicit 
pantheism, 17, 20; his doctrine 
of flux, 36; other notices, 200, 

2i9>3 IO > 3ii>33i>395>396. 
Herbart, 352. 
Herculaneum, 157, 296. 
Herillus of Carthage, heterodox 

pupil of Zeno, 6. 
Hermarchus of Mitylene, 155, 157— 

159- 

Herodotus, Letter to. See Epi- 
curus. 

Herophilus, physician, 390. 

Hesiod, 40, 155, 338. 

Hieronymus of Rhodes, Eclectic 
Peripatetic, 349. 

Hippocrates, 371. 

Hirzel, R, 297. 

Hobbes, 175, 177, 200. 

Homer, 40, 320 note, 338. 

Horace, 307. 

Hume, 42, 177, 178, 182, 330, 351, 
388, 389, 399; cited, 84, 398. 

Hylozoists, 18, 19 note, 61. 

Hypotyposeis (Outlines), 372, 376. 

Ideas, the Platonic, 30; the high- 
est reality, 19; affirmed by the 
Stoics to be notions in our minds, 
22; rejected by Epicurus, 218, 
272. 

Idomeneus, Epicurean, 155, 159. 

Impulse, 66; instinctive and non- 
moral, 78-81; rational, 79, 83, 
103; in excess (definition of 
emotion), 106. 

Intermingling, universal, 28-30. 

Intermundia, 201, 216, 287, 290, 
294, 295, 297, 298. 

Jenkin, Fleeming, 261. 
Jus Gentium, 363. 



/tant, 246, 282, 327, 
397- 



5, 389, 



INDEX 



409 



Lachelier, 292 note, 293, 297. 
Lampsacus, an Epicurean centre, 

155. 156, 159- 
Lecky, 145. 
Leucippus, 26, 174, 205-207, 244, 

259- 

Locke, 67, 289. 

Logic, Stoic, what it included, 55; 
its innovations no improvement 
on Aristotle, 56, 57. 

Lotze cited, 378 note. 

Lucan cited, 39. 

Lucian, 100, 307; cited, 308. 

Lucretius, 161, 162, 219, 220, 221, 
222, 234, 245, 258, 260, 279, 
295, 298, 308; his poem On the 
Nature of Things, 207, 208; 
cited, 214, 220, 221, 222-224, 
226, 227, 234, 250-253, 258, 261- 
264, 266-270, 273, 274, 280, 281, 
289, 290, 293, 299, 300-306. 

Lyttos (in Crete), Epicureans ban- 
ished from, 307. 

Mansel, 330. 

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Ro- 
man emperor, 14, 39, 309, 360; 
his treatise To Himself, 113; 
cited, 46-53, 137, 140, 141, 
146-148. 

Marius, 366. 

Mathematics, why Epicurus re- 
jected, 209-212. 

Matter, primary, of Stoics, 24-28, 
60; fundamental properties, 204, 
219; infinite divisibility denied 
by Epicurus, 243. See Atom. 

Mayor, J. B., 297. 

Menander, poet, 154. 

Menodotus, Pyrrhonean Sceptic, 

373, 374- 
Menceceus, Letter to. See Epicurus. 
Messene, Epicureans outlawed at, 

3°7- 

Metrodorus of Lampsacus, pupil 
of Epicurus, 156-159, 308. 

Metrodorus of Stratonice, Aca- 
demic, 356. 

Micon, 5. 

Mill, J. S., 42, 393, 394. 

Minimum, perceptible by sense, 
247; of the atom, 248-251; 
divisibile, of Berkeley, 246. 



Moore, G. E., 384 note. 

Motion, sole form of energy, 206; 

of films or atom-complexes, 

232-234; of the atom, 222, 

224-227, 255-264. 
Musonius Rufus, teacher of Epic- 

tetus, 113, 127-129, 138, 142, 

360; cited, 100. 

Nature, 24; ambiguous, 82; sub- 
stituted by Carneades for God, 

338- , 

Nausiphanes of Teos, teacher of 

Epicurus, 155. 
Necessity, natural or mechanical, 

19, 26, 41, 104, 174, 201, 259- 

261; distinguished by Chrysippus 

from destiny, 345; position of 

Carneades, 344-347. 
Neo-Platonists, 308. 
Neo-Pythagoreans, 308, 355. 
New Testament cited, 87, 128, 

130, 144. 
Nietzsche, Friedrich, cited, 37. 
Nirvana, 166, 167. 
Numenius, cited, 162. 

(Enoanda, in Pisidia, inscriptions 

discovered at, 309. 
Officium, 93. 
Old Testament cited, 21, 22, 36, 

135- 

Psetus Thrasea, 113, 369. 

Pallas, 285. 

Panaetius of Rhodes, Eclectic 
Stoic, 112, 130, 358, 362-367. 

Pantheism, Stoic, 18-53; of Cle- 
anthes, 17, 18, 20; supposed 
Semitic origin, 21, 22; criticism 
of Carneades, 330-340. 

Parmenides of Elea, 20, 206. 

Peripatetics, followers of Aristotle, 
8, 38, 40, 3°4, 349. 354, 3 66 > 3 6 9- 

Persaeus of Citium, Zeno's favour- 
ite disciple, 5, 6. 

Persius, the poet, 14. 

Petronius, 301. 

Philo of Alexandria (Judaeus), 
376. 

Philo of Larissa, heterodox Aca- 
demic, 355, 375. 

Philodemus of Gadara, 291, 296. 



410 



INDEX 



Philosophy, defined by Stoics, 54; 
by Epicurus, 163; its task ac- 
cording to Carneades, 351, 352; 
divisions of (logic, physics, eth- 
ics), 55. 

Photius cited, 386 note, 390, 391. 

Plato, points of contact with Stoi- 
cism, 30, 59, 60; influence on 
Stoics, 32, 41; criticised by 
Chrysippus, 85; divergence in 
psychology, 105; followed by 
Posidonius, 367; theory of vision, 

235, 236; other notices, 3, 9, 19, 
20, 22, 62, 161, 162, 164, 197, 
205, 209, 218, 249, 272, 317, 320, 
323, 337, 338, 34°, 349, 353, 364, 
367,368,384. 

Platonic Dialogues, Gorgias, 196; 
Phcedo, 197, 267, 345; Prota- 
goras ■,• 164; Republic, 9, 209; 
Sophist, 60; Timaus, 20, 235, 

236, 367- 

Pleasure, depreciated by Stoics, 
110-112; the ethical end to 
Epicurus, 164-173, 185-187. 

Plotinus, 162, 323. 

Plutarch of Chsronea cited, 27, 45, 
46, 109, 140, 260; his testimony to 
Epicurus, 159; his writings, 360. 

Polemo of the Old Academy, 
teacher of Zeno, 5, 357. 

Polyaenus, disciple of Epicurus, 
156, 209. 

Polygnotus, 5. 

Pompey, 366. 

Pope cited, 13. 

Posidonius of Apamea, Eclectic 
Stoic, 210, 358, 361, 366, 367. 

Preconceptions, according to Stoics, 
66-68, 82, 126; to Epicurus, 
217, 218, 237, 287-289. 

Presentation, according to Stoics, 
63, 65, 69-73, 318-320, 341-344, 
346,352; according to Epicurus, 
237- 

Probability, 321, 341, 343-345, 347~ 
352; divergent interpretations, 
356. 

Prodicus, 174. 

Progress, moral, recognized by 
founders of Stoic school, 82, 88, 
89; dominated teaching of Sene- 
ca and Epictetus, 1 18-125. 



Property, essential quality, 221, 241, 

242, 270-272. 
Protagoras of Abdera, 155, 210, 

306; cited, 283. 
Providence, Stoic, 26, 39, 78; denied 

by Epicureans, 304; arguments 

of Carneades, 330, 334, 335. 
Psychology, Stoic, 58-66, 75, 78-83, 

102-110; Epicurean, 264-270. 
Pyrrho of Elis, 313-317, 320-322, 

34i, 373, 374- 
Pyrrhoneans. See later Sceptics. 
Pyrrhonists, 341, 374. 
Pythagoreans, 20, 36, 37. 
Pythocles, 156, 194; Letter of 

Epicurus to, 279, cited, 228. 

Religion (the popular), attitude of 
Stoics to, 40, 41, 339; attitude 
of Epictetus, 133-137; of Epicu- 
rus, 168, 172, 173, 276, 277, 279, 
282, 298, 299, 301, 302, 304; of 
Lucretius, 280, 281, 299, 300- 
306; of Xenophanes, 306, 338; 
of Democritus, 284-286; of 
Carneades, 339, 340. 

Rousseau, 175. 

Rush, 199. 

Rutilius, 366. 

Saturninus, pupil of Sextus, 373, 

374- 
Sceptic, various meanings, 312. 
Sceptics, classified, 313; later 

(Pyrrhonean), 210, 317, 321, 370, 

371 sqq. 
Sceptics of the Academy, 325. See 

Academy, New. 
Schomann, G. F., 297. 
Scipio, the younger, 362. 
Scott, his Dugald Dalgetty, 101. 
Scott, Prof. W., 292 note; his views 

on the Epicurean gods cited, 

293-295, 2 97- 

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 14, 137, 
140, 159, 360, 368; his views on 
probation, 120, 121; love, 109, 
127; religious observances, 136; 
heroic women, 138, 139; his writ- 
ings, 113; cited, 27, 31, 39 note, 
59, 76, 116, 118, 149 note, 150. 

Sextus Empiricus, physician and 
Sceptic, 210, 371-375, 378; his 



INDEX 



411 



writings, 372, 373; cited, 71, 286, 

3*9, 327> 35 6 > 37 6 note > 379. 
380, 386, 390, 391, 393, 396, 

398. 

Shelley cited, 34. 

Signs, argument of ^Enesidemus, 
389-391 ; commemorative and 
demonstrative, 392-394. 

Slavery, I43~i45- 

Socrates, typical sage, 88, 115, 119; 
Socratic tradition preserved by 
Stoics, 4, 64; through Cynics, 9; 
teleology, 39, 41, 75; ethics, 83, 
104; other notices, 164, 210, 321, 

3 22 >3 2 9, 35 1 - 
Sophists, 4, 325. 
Sorites, 325. 
Soul, its nature according to Stoics, 

60; its unity, 61, 62, 65, 105; 

diverse functions, 63, 64; limited 

immortality allowed by some 

Stoics, 364; Epicurean doctrine 

of, 264-270. 
Space, to Stoics incorporeal, 59; to 

Epicurus real, 220; conceived as 

vacuum, 206, 220. 
Spencer, Herbert, 156, 198, 199- 

202. 
Speusippus, Plato's successor, 357. 
Sphaerus of Bosporus, 6. 
Stilpo, Megarian philosopher, 5. 
StoaPcecile, 5. 
Strato of Lampsacus, Peripatetic, 

23, 61, 62. 
Suicide, 98-102. 
Swinburne, 156. 

Teleology, Stoic, 25, 26, 38-43, 
327; rejected by Epicurus, 40, 
43, 163, 208, 274-281, 327; by 
Lucretius, 304-306 ; arguments 
of Carneades, 323, 327-329, 337, 
338. 

Tennyson cited, 287, 302. 

Tension of primary substance 
variable, 24, 31; in substance of 
soul, 104, 105. 

Thales of Miletus cited, 20. 

Theophrastus, Aristotle's succes- 
sor, 23, 235, 320 note, 357. 

Time, to Stoics, incorporeal, 59; 
how conceived by Epicurus, 272- 
274; view of iEnesidemus, 396. 



Timon of Phlius, 313-315, 373 
note, 374; cited, 320. 

Tropes, the ten of .-Enesidemus, 
376-380; the five of Agrippa, 
379; the eight of .-Enesidemus 
upon causality, 386, 387. 

Tubero, Lucius iElius, 375, 376. 

Virgil, 33, 307. 

Virtue, how conceived by Stoics, 
85-88; by Epicurus, 172, 174; 
his criticism of Stoic virtue, 196, 
197. 

Visum, 63, 72. 

Volition, confused with judgment 
by the Stoics, 64; both judgment 
and volition confused with feel- 
ing, 102, 103, 105, 106. 

Voltaire, 308. 

War, 142. 

World (cosmical system) defined 

by Epicurus, 228. 
World-cycles, recurrent, 36-38, 

364, 367- 

Xenocrates, Academic, 357. 
Xenophanes, implicit pantheism 

of, 17, 20; criticised the popular 

faith, 306, 338. 
Xenophon, 337. 

Zeno of Citium, founder of the 
Stoic school, 4-7, 10, 22, 42, 88, 
140, 151, 340, 357> 364, 368; 
his treatise, The Republic, 9; 
his function to combine rather 
than to originate, 12; supposed 
Semitic elements in his teaching, 
21; his two principles, force and 
matter, 13, 28; views on re- 
ligion, 40; on the relation of sen- 
sation to knowledge, 72; on 
moral progress, 89; definition of 
the ethical end, 79; introduced 
into ethics the conception of 
Value, 90; and the term Kathe- 
kon, 93-95; controversy with 
Arcesilas, 319; argument cited, 
328. 

Zeno of Elea, 243, 246. 

Zeno of Sidon, later Epicurean, 
210, 



412 INDEX 

Zeno of Tarsus, fourth head of sonal God, 14-16; and yet 

Stoic school, 360. identical with the All, 40, 135; 

Zeus, identified with Fire and city of, 76, 142; the sky or 

Logos by Heraclitus, 12; ad- ether according to Democritus, 

dressed by Cleanthes as a per- 285. 



MAR 7 191 






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